Starting on my workbench

[Marcus Ward]

Okay the workbench is ... not finished, but usable. I still need to build drawers but I have some better pictures and a bit of tool gloat. Forgive the load times.

[Roy Wall]

Marcus,

Congrats on a great looking bench! Talk about sturdy......looks terrific!

Nice family of planes there too......

[Louis Bois]

Nicely done Marcus!!! Once you start using it, you'll wonder how you ever managed without it. May it give you a lifetime of pleasure...and ease all your hand tool work.

Cheers!!!

[Don Bullock]

Wow!! Marcus, your bench came out looking great. Congratulations on a job well done. You now have a special "tool" for your shop that will serve you well for many years.

[Dusty Fuller]

A big happy family... parents, grandparents, babies... any red-headed stepchildren in that bunch of planes? I'd like to have that many but I'd have nowhere to put them and not enough projects to use them on (yet). Nice bench!

Dusty

[Marcus Ward]

Thanks for all the kind words guys. I am in wichita right now for a job interview - not sure how THAT went! - and scoured some antique stores while here. Picked up a #4 1/2 for 12$. Saw a couple of other likely candidates but now that the collection is getting kind of fat I find myself getting very picky.

[Ken Stevens]

A friend has a "mini" bench that's about 2' square that he clamps to his main bench for when he needs elevated surfaces for dovetails and such. On that bench, he has holes of various shapes for all of his hand cut joinery tools - chisels, malets, gauges, etc. It works really well for those kinds of things.

Jason: this comment caught my eye as I am learning to hand cut dovetails and truth be told, it is killing my back to bend over to do the chisel work. Any way you can describe your friend's "mini" bench in more detail or even obtain a photo of it. I have been using a simple box clamped to the workbench and then several clamps for the boards but it is not elegant nor friendly.

Any further info or ideas are welcome.

Thanks,
Ken

[John Schreiber]

I love the look of the green dye on the legs. I think many traditional benches were painted and this shows why.

Congratulations on your accomplishment and keep on building.

[Eric Sabo]

Absolutely beautiful. Gives me some inspiration to build - not buy - my lifetime bench.

[Jay Fields]

Great looking bench. I'm sure it will last a couple of lifetimes.

[Jerry Olexa]

Excellent works....Looks good and I'm sure is sturdy. Be proud. Enjoy it...

[jude samson]

Hi Marcus
Pardon me I came late to the party. Why not insert a cabinet between the legs of the base, instead of stretchers. The cabinet would plumb/square/level everything off. Or if you are not stuck on the very traditional look of a bench needing legs, make a base cabinet wfeet simular to the trditional bases. I recently purchase a bench from a retiring furniture maker. He took out the stretchers & inserted a plywood cabinet between the legs. I plan to build a new teak cabinet to go along w/the Rhodesian Teak of the bench.

Respectfully Jude in NYC!

Good luck w/your task at hand, I can't wait to see the finished product.

[Jason Beam]

Jason: this comment caught my eye as I am learning to hand cut dovetails and truth be told, it is killing my back to bend over to do the chisel work. Any way you can describe your friend's "mini" bench in more detail or even obtain a photo of it. I have been using a simple box clamped to the workbench and then several clamps for the boards but it is not elegant nor friendly.

Any further info or ideas are welcome.

Thanks,
Ken

Hi Ken,

Sorry it took so long to reply - I hadn't popped into this thread in awhile. I'll see if I can find out if the plans have been published for it yet. I know the guy was working with FWW to get some plans drawn up and published, I just haven't heard about it. I'll check with him tonight.

[Marcus Ward]

Hi Jude - basically I know nothing about building a cabinet, but I know how legs and stretchers work, so 4 drawers down below will have to do. If I rebuild the base later I might try the cabinet thing. Thanks for the kind words.

M

[Jason Beam]

Jason: this comment caught my eye as I am learning to hand cut dovetails and truth be told, it is killing my back to bend over to do the chisel work. Any way you can describe your friend's "mini" bench in more detail or even obtain a photo of it. I have been using a simple box clamped to the workbench and then several clamps for the boards but it is not elegant nor friendly.

Any further info or ideas are welcome.

Thanks,
Ken

Hi Ken,

Sorry it took so long to reply - I hadn't popped into this thread in awhile. I'll see if I can find out if the plans have been published for it yet. I know the guy was working with FWW to get some plans drawn up and published, I just haven't heard about it. I'll check with him tonight.

Update: The guy I spoke to told me he's been selling the plans and he'd be happy to speak with anyone interested. I wish I had a pic of it, but suffice it to say it's very much like a regular bench only about 18" tall and 24" square(ish). I don't wanna hijack marcus' thread any further so if you're interested, feel free to PM me for my friend's contact info.