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European red beech is a little like working aluminum. It is very hard and dense. Probably not as hard or dense as Gaboon Ebony or Lignum Vitae, but still some hard stuff.
I chose to use 8/4 quarter sawn material. It came in widths of only 6-8 inches, so there was going to be some serious glueups to get to the 22 inch wide, 3 1/2 inch thick benchtop that I had in mind. The length was
only 50 inches, to keep from making a major roadblock in the shop.
The legs would also be built up to achieve a square width of 3 inches or so. I also overbuilt the thing with top rails, stretchers and pedestal feet.
The vises would be used both for a front vise and full width tail vise. I decided against a tool tray and instead plan to build storage below the benchtop. Bench dogs would be Varitas 3/4 inch brass with a spring
retainer...nice.
Overall, the weight would be a little over 200 pounds, so it is movable, but stable for lots of big stuff.
Construction would be mortise & tenon; I've done a few with router/ chisel process. I would do that again. However, my straight cut 1/2 inch carbide cutters burned very badly. So, I reverted to the
forstner/drill press to remove the bulk of the stock. Later, I tried a 2-lip, high speed steel, up- twist end mill that I use for aluminum and found that it cut perfectly. A 4-lip just burned at all speeds and made
a hell of a lot of noise. Actually, by sizing the forstner bits to the width of the mortise, and building a simple jig to accurately hit the same spots on all 4 legs, I found that process the best. My chisels were
the Marples blue chips that I hone on a rotating leather strop in the drill press. They cut this stuff like butter. The tenons were simple and accurate on the table saw. I tried for a .010 fit so as to not squeeze
out too much glue, allow for easy assembly and tight enough to give the wood a chance to swell to fit.
I was short a little material, so I decided to try to finger join some of the shorter pieces for the stretchers. It works out nicely, in two passes. Takes a little to get used to and some REALLY critical adjustments
to make the two passes.
The benchtop was the most difficult, believe it or not. I'm used to doing shorter banding on ply, or edge gluing smaller stuff. But this 8/4 beech has to be jointed PERFECTLY STRAIGHT. If not, gaposis results. I ran
a number of tests (with the actual pieces) and finally had the outfeed on the jointer such that the whole length of the glueup closed to the standard hairline. I used biscuits to align the pieces. When I had 3
lengths of 3 1/2 inch top finished, I jointed them again, finished planed them and biscuit joined them together for the final size. I did it this way, since my planer will only handle 12 inch material, and the
jointer only 8 inches. Drilling was a piece of cake with a long 3/4 inch brad point and the drill press (Virginia helped hold).
The vise jaws were also made up of the 8/4 beech to a thickness of 3 1/2 inches and a height of 7 inches. Drilling and aligning for the pass through of the screw and guide rods takes a lot of patience, measurement
and fitting. It worked OK.
I finished the whole thing with Deft, about 6 coats, thinned 1:3 and sprayed, rubbed with 000 steel wool between coats. This is a finish that looks & feels great, but is a cinch to refinish from time to time.
Pictures follow below:
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