Nicholson Prototype Construction II
With the young colt up on its not-at-all-wobbly feet I turned my attentions to completing the under-structure for the bench. This included three main elements, namely the backing board for the front apron (I knew that this bench was destined to be used against a wall and so would not need for both front and rear aprons to be used in work holding), the top batten nailer on the rear apron, and the top battens themselves.
While some folks are perfectly content with a single-thickness apron and top, I choose instead to make sure that these are double thick, or at least there are regions of double thickness, to better suffice for grabbing holdfasts which serve as the primary workholding tool on the bench. Thus the double-thick front apron and the battens-plus-planks for the top give me plenty of opportunity to locate and use holdfasts.
I ripped the front apron backer on the table saw such that the 2×12 became a 2×10 and a 2×1-1/2. I screwed these in place so that the top battens that rested on them were 1/8″ shy of the top of the front and rear aprons. This was so that I could plane off the top edges of the full aprons to remove the rounded mill-edge that they came with from the original manufacturing. I placed the battens roughly equidistant, beginning with the tops of the legs and interspersed in between.
Here you can see the front apron has been planed even with the top surface of the battens.
This portion of the project took a little more than an hour, so I was just barely past the three-hour mark on the project.
Up next – affixing the top planks and drilling the holdfast holes. Stay tuned.
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