Making the stretchers

11/16 (30mins) With the legs assembled (mortises still needed) it was time to work on the stretchers. My quick math showed 45" and 21" were going to be needed, so I quickly cut 4 48" and 4 24" inch pieces on the chop saw to begin this process.

These stretchers are going to be thicker then in the plans; however the book says to overkill the construction of the bench, so these will be a bit over kill.

11/17 (1+hr) I surfaced one face and edge on each board. Pleasantly surprised that this wood is nicer then the leg wood. I had previously separated the good pieces for the top; and 2 of those are now being used a stretchers. Ripped these to ~4 1/2" Ripping the wood I re-learned a good tip. Always put the surfaced side down on the table saw to rip. Glued them up and called it a night.

11/18 (1hr) Same as the previous night, working with 24-30" pieces is much easier though.

11/19 (1+hrs). Squared up the stretchers on the planer & jointer. Finished dimensions are 2 9/16 x 4/14. I would have taken the 1/16th of the thickness if I had noticed in time. It won't matter in the least I am sure. A couple of these glue ups could have been a little better. A gap here and there. Though most seem sound. I've decided the tenons will be 2 1/2" long by 1" thick.

11/21 (2hrs) Friday night and the wife was out so I went down to cut the tenons. Since I don't have a tenoning jig, a dado blade, or the skills to cut the tenons by hand, I decided to use the nibble out approach. This worked pretty darn good, but made a lot of dust, didn't strike me as super safe (nor super dangerous either). So after doing the two short stretchers I called it a night.

11/22 (1+ hr) I cleaned up the tenons a little; my kids thought breaking off the pieces was a lot of fun, and went to work on the long stretchers. This is were my setup was less then ideal. The long piece wasn't fully supported on my table saw, so I had to be extra mindful when I nibbled away. I also noticed something wasn't perfectly square not sure what.

11/23 (1+hr) Found out that my miter gauge was off 1-2 degrees. Not sure how that happened, but I quickly fixed it. However this will lead to a little more work during the clean up. With the four stretchers complete and a little out of square I spent some time with a chisel and low angle block plane (my first and favorite plane) to get everything aligned, at least until I get read to chop and fit the mortises.