Well, as I don't have a garage or decent shed.. this plane is going to be built in the basement! I know it wont be the first and it certainly wont be the last to be built that way, there are great merits to building in the basement...  just never do anything with fiberglass!!  ooo noooo!! But Again, I wasn't sure which way up to do this so I started at the bottom and worked my way up. Sounds logical but if you want to read this from the start, you need to go to the bottom of the page. Click here for a free ride down there.

Wednesday April 16 2003
Workbench is finally completed.. I bowed to financial pressure and went with the 3/4" chip board..  Still, it came out pretty good and I am pleased with the results. I adapted the model that Carlos Gurr used with his fold away table. Cross braces are 16" apart.

Here are a few shots of progress and completion, as usual.. click on the picture to enlarge it 
                   
The basic frame.

                 
Add a surface        ...and          then some legs

                 
Looking good...                          and it's flat..

I constructed this totally single handed but I would recommend when fitting the legs to bring a helper (assuming you do it the way I did). I installed the legs on one side whilst the bench was propped up against the wall, once they were screwed tight I let it down onto the 3 legs, then crawled underneath and lay on my back and with my hands and feet managed to lift the legless side up and prop it with another leg. This took 3 attempts.. as there is quite a bit of lumber to lift. In the end I kinda got mad and it WAS going to happen.. I think I heard every bone in my back crack as I took the weight.. feels great now  :o)  ..and once I managed to get one leg underneath it was easy getting the other legs in place. I think it bows in the center about 1/16" but with a spare piece of 1/16" ply under the middle leg it turned out great. I was tempted to go with 8 legs but I believed I could coax it into shape easier if it was not flat.. I was right too.. I have to say, had the floor been flat I wouldn't have needed the sliver of ply. (well I would say that wouldn't I???)

Saturday April 05 2003
Winter returned with a vengeance!! I was going to get some screws and the rest of the wood to complete my bench frame this weekend but there is 3" of ice on everything.. then it snowed on top of that..   I suppose I could make the necessary adjustments to my rib jig and figure out how I am going to to the lower ribs. I feel another question to the group coming on!! I also think I will be surfacing it with 3/4 ply.. it's expensive but tough and flat. Still not quite decided though!

Saturday March 29 2003
I finally found two 12 foot lengths of straight wood for my workbench at Lowes, I also purchased 3x 8'x2"x4" for the legs and a tester for the cross members..  In a way, this is one of the most crucial parts of building the plane. Everything has to be flat and square. I'm still not sure what to surface it with yet though.. I know what I would like, but the plywood is way to expensive. I did see some chip board at around 15 bucks a sheet though I'm not sure it wont need surfacing with something else in addition...  I will see.

I also plan on making a miter saw bench using the 4'x4' cut off from the bench surfacing wood.. I only have a rough Idea what I want but have sketched out a plan.. if it turns out ok I will put the plans on here.

  Below is a picture of the basement as it was before I started planning anything. Big changes abound.. I need to clear stuff out, build the bench and arrange my tools At the start of this project we will only have been in the house 3 months so I think I did well to stake claim to this much space..  kinda functional but not too practical as it is here.

As soon as I finish my little Christmas project I will re-arrange everything. The bench (to be built yet) will go on the right and the power tools will go on the left. The center section will be to store the fuse when it is built and I will have the table saw in the middle at this end to give me more space for ripping the wood. I plan on blanking this end off to keep the dust away from my computer (just visible on the right there) and a door in the middle will allow me to rip long pieces.

Ok, you have to use your imagination a little but it will be fine.