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Thread: Show us your Bench

  1. #46
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    Plano, TX
    Posts
    2,036
    This thread is now a part of the FAQs too much WWing porn couldn't help it
    The means by which an end is reached must exemplify the value of the end itself.

  2. #47
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Queens, NY
    Posts
    133
    David, to address your Q about the DF base-

    I used DF for my legs and some left over/found maple and cherry for my stretchers. I had enough DF for the whole thing but my reasoning was thus:

    based on the notion of using varying moisture contents to our advantage,
    the MC of the hardwood tenons *should* be lower than the MC of my DF mortises. so in theory when joined the tenons will want to expand upon contact with 'wetter' wood and the mortises will want to contract over time as the DF dries, all making for an extremely tight joint.

    on average (and this is from memory so feel free to correct as necessary),
    softwoods run around 10-14% and up MC, and kiln dried hardwoods run 8-10%.

    I just finished my bench recently, I guess we'll see what happens over time.
    Good Luck!
    -Roger

  3. David - yes, my base is also DF. Everything but the vise chop and deadman, which benefit from harder Ash material.

  4. #49
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada
    Posts
    1,148
    Kind of the same principle use when building windsore chaires!

  5. #50
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Salt Lake City
    Posts
    1,506
    Mine sucks. You can ban me for having a crappy bench. Eventually I'd like to dig out the other half of my shelf basement and build a real workbench while keeping this one just as an outfeed for the table saw. I'd also like a complete collection of LN planes, an altendorf saw and a lifetime supply of spalted maple.

  6. #51
    Oh God, this is humbling, but I vowed to post pics of my work and projects in order to learn more and take constructive criticism.

    Okay, here is my take on the CS $200 bench. Top is 1 3/4" butcher block I got super cheap as a cast off. About 6' long by 24" wide. The legs are 4x4 fir from Lowes and the stretchers use butt joints, but are reinforced with threaded rods the entire length. The old quick release vice was found on Craig's List for dirt cheap. I have had a lot of fun with this. I built a variety of jigs including a shooting board, birds mouth stop for jointing and a few more. It may be ugly, but it is flat, heavy and solid for any hand tool work I can throw at it and has made assembly a great experience. Some day I hope to build something half as nice as the benches posted here, but I am glad I made this beater first.
    Attached Images Attached Images

  7. #52
    Well Dean, My only criticism is the cleanliness of the top. No dust, shavings, tools, clutter......

    Seriously though, if it's solid and sturdy, the right height, and most importantly allows you to hold all of your workpieces then you're good to go. While we all like pretty and functional tools, its a bench and therefore a tool, not a piece of living or dining room furniture. Glitz doesn't hold work any better and all of us can appreciate the need to conserve cash for other uses.

    If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
    Dave Anderson

    Chester, NH

  8. #53
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Prairieville, Louisiana
    Posts
    578

    Smile I'm sorry . . .

    Quote Originally Posted by Alex Shanku View Post
    4" thick top (maple)

    24"x84" at 33" off the floor.

    LN tail vise and LV face vise





    I'm sorry, that bench is ugly . . . Maybe you could hide the hideous thing in my shop . . .
    Support the "CREEK" . . .

  9. #54
    Quote Originally Posted by Dave Anderson NH View Post
    Well Dean, My only criticism is the cleanliness of the top. No dust, shavings, tools, clutter......

    Seriously though, if it's solid and sturdy, the right height, and most importantly allows you to hold all of your workpieces then you're good to go. While we all like pretty and functional tools, its a bench and therefore a tool, not a piece of living or dining room furniture. Glitz doesn't hold work any better and all of us can appreciate the need to conserve cash for other uses.

    If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
    Dave, I swear to you it is a mess now. That pic was made right after rearranging the whole shop.

  10. #55
    . . .and a lifetime supply of spalted maple.
    That I could supply! Unfortunately, it'll cost you in drive time, buying a mill, and a lot of time cutting, drying, etc.

    I have a few friends around here that have had a bunch of maple fall to the darn parasite blight going round. I have a bunch of short spalted maple as a result, though it is sopping wet, and I don't have a kiln, enough space to properly dry it outdoors, nor a mill, or a. . .

    Ok, maybe not a lifetime supply, but certainly more than enough to get you through a few years.

    As a side note, I also got a little Beech, some of which is spalted. I am waiting a few months to see what it dries to, then I will try to do something with it. It is a lot of work harvesting wood with an axe, wedges, and a bowsaw! Particularly when most of it is pretty short. Someone cut the Beech into 2' lengths, but never split it or stacked it, so there is a lot of checking that needs to be gotten rid of.
    Making furniture teaches us new ways to remove splinters.

  11. #56
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Location
    Hutchinson, MN
    Posts
    600
    I've not entered this discussion before, but here goes. There won't be a pic. My bench is used, well used, well worn, abused, and works just fine. It was designed following the Tage Frid plans in his books (don't remember which one) and was built from a bunch of 2X4 stock, maybe even pine - don't remember, but it was about 25 years ago. It has been a partner in the creation of at least one house full of furniture, incorporates a bench screw from my grandfather's bench in the tail and a shoulder vise of some unknown description. It has had two motorcycle engines rebuilt on it, a bunch of carbs, chairs, desks, armoires, desks, an occasional turning lathe mounted, numerous gadgets, widgets and unmentionables.

    The point? This bench was made to work, to keep stuff in place while work was being done on it, and not to be a showcase. It has performed admirably.. I wouldn't want a harder wood than it has because many things have bonked on it. I'd rather the bench take the abuse than the furniture. I don't want to have to think about the bench. Like other things in my shop, it is a tool, not the other way around. It works. I have user stuff, not trophies.

    Bruce

  12. #57
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    35 miles north of NY City
    Posts
    193
    Hear here! My sentiments exactly Bruce.

    My bench is a long boat building bench, way up the thread somewhere. It was built of construction lumber and was never intended to look like board room furniture. Yesterday I was beveling the edges of some planks, preparing them for scarphing. Holding a stack of plywood with holdfasts usually works well, but just for a bit of added assurance, I pounded a couple of brads through the stack. I bet the guys with spalted maple and purpleheart tops wouldn't do that. Like you said, my WORKbench is for working and not worrying about. I love it because it works so well.

  13. #58
    I work using 6 different surfaces. One bench I built recently, tiny, out of cruddy reclaimed maple. One that my dad built, a rather nice bench with a 5" top made of cherry, oak, maple and sycamore. Two benches/tables that I made out of solid core doors and 2x4s, and one old cabinet that I threw a top on. The last surface is one that I hate using as a bench but don't have a lot of choice sometimes. The table saw top.

    I probably do the most work on my little cruddy maple bench, but it lacks a lot of things, and is in an unfinished state.

    The table saw, My dads bench, and my maple bench are all in the main shop at my fathers place, where I operate my business from.

    My two slabs and cabinet bench are all at home, in my tiny, dark, damp horrible basement shop where I have my lathe and the company of a lot of spiders.

    Once I strike it rich and buy myself a few acres out in the middle of nowhere I will build a nice work shop as well as great bench or three.

    That being said, even if I were to have the nicest shop in the world, with three great Birdseye maple benches, accented with teak, rosewood, Bocote and Jatoba, I would still want a solid, flat work surface of about 3x7 that I didn't mind messing up.

    It isn't the bench that makes the workshop. A nice bench makes working more enjoyable, but sometimes all you need is plywood on a set of horses, and I wouldn't fault anyone for working on any available surface.
    Making furniture teaches us new ways to remove splinters.

  14. #59
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Location
    Peachtree City, GA
    Posts
    49
    Forgive me brother woodworkers, for I have sinned.

    Out of my ignorance, I have built a 'trophy' bench.
    I thought my heart was pure, but I was deceived. I realize now that when I gaze upon her comely form, she is an evil seductress - a false idol, useless for my needs, mocking my woodworking. All the fruit of our labors together must be inherently tainted, for nothing good could ever possibly come from such an evil union.

    In my pitiful defense, I did not know that there is one true bench to rule them all.

    While I am confessing my sins, I must also shamefully state that I possess several Lie-Nielsen planes. Because of their refined forms and pleasing nature, I now know they are too beautiful to be tools. They must be evil 'trophy tools',

    This evening, after I perform the nightly polishing of her top that my evil 'showcase' mistress demands, I will go to bed without supper and reflect on my transgressions.

    Have mercy on my woodworking soul.


  15. #60
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    extreme southeast Nebraska
    Posts
    3,113
    Low be my woodshop in one half of my old basement, one bench I have, two if I count the shopmade table saw top, I own no lie Nielson, LV or other of the iron planes that most seek. I putter and tinker on my small old oak bench with mostly antique tools or reproductions or inventions of my making. I vacum the floor every so often mainly to look for things I am missing. But its home to me which makes for a good marriage as often when the male retires or is forced into retirement, He has too much time and She of the Goddess catagory has to much Him.

    Happy Thanksgiving to all, remember the Turkey Birds and the Pigs gave their all to make us Humans Happy and full.

    Enjoy the grandurchins and take them to the male sanctuary with the workbench and let them make something.
    Jr.
    Hand tools are very modern- they are all cordless
    NORMAL is just a setting on the washing machine.
    Be who you are and say what you feel... because those that matter... don't mind...and those that mind...don't matter!
    By Hammer and Hand All Arts Do Stand

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