Portable Workbench Build Process
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Posted 27th March 2021
The first bits to get glued together are the feet to the fixed jaws. The dual-screw vice end fixed jaw is aligned with lots of dowels and a bit of the tube that I've used for vice rails. The standard vice end is aligned with the two vice rail bushes. I got everything set up and mixed up some more Araldite (as it has a much longer open time than the wood glue).
I then glued and banged in the dowels and pushed the tube into place (without glue). I didn't take any more photos for a while after this one as everything gets a bit frantic when I'm gluing stuff together!
Finally (for this one) I pushed everything together, clamped it, wiped all (or at least as much as possible of) the squeezed-out glue off and then pulled the tube back out again (I'll glue that in later). The other end was much simpler, but before starting on the wood glue, I put some of the mixed-up epoxy on the inside of the flange where the vice rails (and the screw bush while I was at it) sit:
Since I was on a bit of an Araldite roll, I also epoxied the bearing block into the moving jaw for the standard vice and the two slotted bushes into the moving jaw for the dual-screw vice. The flanges were definitely a good thing on the other brass bits - there was a lot of messy squeezed-out Araldite at the bottom of the hole for the slotted bushes. I cleaned up as much as I could, but I'll have to do more when the epoxy has cured.
Here's everything clamped as it is now:
I also glued the hinge bars into place. To do this, I fitted each one dry, then slid it out one way and put a very small drop of Loctite 603 on the end, then slid it the other way and repeated that. I'm hoping that this results in the hinge bar being held in place but the nut still pivoting on the hinge bar. If it jams up I can always get it undone again with acetone or heat.
Finally I glued the dovetail guide up by clamping it to a small welding square. This will need more work to clean it up a bit, but I'll do that once the glue has dried.
That brings us to the end of the day's work. It's been a major step today as it's the first time I really can't go backwards and change something (without going shopping for more beech and basically starting again!). Hopefully when I go out tomorrow morning I won't find anything drastically wrong!
Page 47 of 67
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