Steven C. Kumpf  Jr. wrote:

The pine ended up being my
> new workbench top with two rows of  dog holes, square, in the front piece.
The
> maple is the base with doweled  mortise and tenon, all done by hand and
not
> glued in case I have to move  it.  It is a monster with all my bench
planes in
> the base.  But now I  see that I should have glued the base because with
all
> the planing the base has  become loose.  Is there some way that I can keep
it
> solid without gluing it  together?  I know about the drawboring, but I
would
> rather be able to take  it apart if I need to.

Steve could try the method of joining prescribed for bench building in "How
to Work with Tools and Wood", a Stanley Tools book first published in 1952
and into its 22nd printing by Pocket Books in 1972, the vintage of my copy.
Simply, hex head (machine?) bolts of  3/8" are run through washers into the
legs and thence into the rails, 1" holes are drilled into the rails at the
points where the ends of the bolts will be located and the bolts are
tightened into the nuts placed in such 1" holes.  It's all a bit, hum, Ikea
with real timber. Although the Stanley design was for flush-fitting rails
and legs and dowels were incorporated to prevent the rails from revolving on
the bolts, there seems to be no reason why one can't fit the bolt & nut
assembly to the bench as is.  The trick is to drill the bolt holes straight
enough so that the 1" holes land on the ends of the bolt holes.  Horizontal
drilling (boring?) with a brace and auger with a looose washer on the auger
shank to keep things horizontal whilst sighting along the rail to keep
things straight should do the trick.  The auger having, in the ordinary
course, 1/64" greater diameter than its nominal size, permits the easy
fitting of the bolts.  I have built six of this type of bench (some simply
as heavy stands) in this manner over the years and have been happy enough to
have been able to tighten them up whenever timber movement so dictated and
they can be pulled apart for transportation and re-assembled fairly easily.
16 nuts, bolts & washers are required if the bench has lower as well as
upper rails.  If one does not like the bolt heads protruding they can be
sunk and plugged and the 1" holes can be bored from the inside to a
sufficient depth to accommodate the nut but without exiting the far side
(outside) of the rail but the plugs have to be removed for disassembly or
retightening.  This construction method first appealed to the bottom-feeder
in me because I could use "off-the-saw", unseasoned and therefore much
cheaper hardwood for the bench base and pull things together as shrinkage
loosened things up. Liberal applications of diesel fuel on the green timber
forestalled endgrain cracks.

In the alternative, if drawboring is continued completely through the legs
and well-seasoned and substantial (1/2", say) and "bendable" dowels are used
for the pins (unglued) they should be able to be drifted out with a smaller
diameter drift but would need renewing on re-assembly.  The offset should be
no greater than 1/16" and the leading end of the pin needs to be well
tapered to avoid the dreaded "blow out" on the far side.  Drive them from
the "show" side just in case.

John Manners
In Brisbane, where it's starting to warm up a bit.

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