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Fifteen years ago (next Spring), Norm Abram inspired me to build a woodworking bench. It wasn’t hard – I never saw a real one before. In the years since, through experience and research, I have learned that his design is somewhat flawed. My style of woodworking demands more from the design and there are some problems I have been meaning to address.
One of the problems I have is with the tool tray. After a day of woodworking, it becomes filled with detritus and must be cleaned. I keep certain items in the tray all the time and they must be removed, and the tray swept. Invariably there is a certain amount of crud that is never completely removed and is stuck in the corners – impossible to extricate completely without the assistance of the ShopVac. (I’m lazy and cheap.) I have been trying for some time to find a better way to clean out my tray, with little success.
Some woodworkers simply build benches without tool trays, indicating they are more trouble than they’re worth. There are days I agree with them. Others leave gaping holes in the bottom, for one reason or another, but that frightens me. It would be terrible if my 604C bedrock were to fall to its certain demise through a hole in the tray. There must be a middle ground in this matter.
I happened to be turning something recently, my failing memory can’t recall what it was, but it struck me that a clean-out hole with a turned plug might be the answer. Obviously this begs to ask what size the hole should be? I decided as big as possible so that the plug didn’t take up too much room, but beyond that, I would find out by trial and error. Thus, I don’t remember how big it is – I would have to go out and measure it – but it seems to work fine. For the record I think it is about 1.5 inches but I basically grabbed a Forstner bit and started drilling, using the hole to size the tenon after.
I decided to place the hole in the corner of the tool tray across form the tail vise. I used the corner because that is where the crud builds up. The plug would be out of the way too, protected on two sides by the sides of the tray, where it wouldn’t interfere with or be beat up by tools. Lastly, I decided to drill the end of the bench with the tail vise because that is where my garbage can always sits.
Once the hole was drilled, I planed one side of a leftover piece of framing stud, then cut it in half. I glued the fresh surfaces of the two pieces together to make a turning blank for the plug. Using the Saw-Aid, graciously provided to me by the Stots Corporation, I marked the centers on each end and placed the blank in the lathe. After turning it round, I marked out the major diameters and then sized the tenon – it’s the most important aspect of the turning.
I test fit the tenon in the hole and was happy with the result. I re-chucked the blank in the lathe and completed the turning.
The finish was achieved by using orange shellac to produce a lathe version of French polish. The shellac was burnished with wood chips and a coat of beeswax was applied, also burnished with wood chips. Last, I parted off the knob.
The end of the knob was finished the same way, after some work with a file and sandpaper. The only difference was that the shellac and wax were hand applied – which led to a darker, shinier finish on the top of the knob.
The result seems to work just as I expected. I may drill out a larger hole in the future but, for now, I am satisfied. This modification to the original New Yankee Workshop plan has proven to correct the problem of debris that can’t easily be removed from the tool tray. I would probably do this to my next bench.
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