Finished my first real piece of furniture

[Michael Schwartz]

Just finished my first real project.

Wood - Cherry, all solid from one 12" wide board.
All handscraped and handplaned and not touched with sandpaper
Hand Cut 1/2 blind dovetails
Hand Cut through mortise and tenon joints
One tank of a bench.

[Eric Hartunian]

I really like the contrasting wedges in the tennons. I made a similar bench out of QSWO, but narrower, and with thru DTs. I wish I had made mine wider like yours...much more stable (I use mine as a saw bench).
Great first project, my first broke the camera!
Eric

[Pam Niedermayer]

Elegant job, Michael.

Pam

[Heather Thompson]

Very nice, hand work is the most rewarding, very classy.

Heather

[Michael Schwartz]

Thanks for the replys, All the woodworking I have done in the past has been more on the carpentry side than fine woodworking.


My 10$ card scraper seems like it was a better investment than my random orbit sander Faster, better finish, and no cord to get in the way

I am really starting to enjoying hand work as milling stock with machines is, well, just milling.

[Alex Carrera]

Very nice work. I love the card scraper too, my first realization that power tools are not always better. Until I started burning my fingers

[Mark Stutz]

My 10$ card scraper seems like it was a better investment than my random orbit sander Faster, better finish, and no cord to get in the way

Not to mention that you don't need a dust mask, and the music sounds so much better without ear plugs!

Mark

[Michael Schwartz]

I think the card scraper in a way has become a forgotten tool. People buy cheap ones from the hardware store, and don't know how to tune them up.

A properly tuned card scraper with the slightest burr is a magical tool. Even if you do sand afterwords, all you need to do is hand sand very lightly with the final grit.

If you have a pretty good surface to begin with (no major tearout or macine marks) you can pretty much finish that surface in the time it would take you to just sand to 80 or 100 grit with a random orbit sander. If you have good strait grain you can do it even faster with a handplane.

[Zahid Naqvi]

Nice job Michael.

[Raymond Stanley]

That looks wonderful, Michael. Nice to see beautiful projects like that built with handtools; gives me hope!

[Don C Peterson]

Very nice, Cherry is great to work with hand tools.

[Montgomery Scott]

....and the music sounds so much better without ear plugs!

Mark

Unless, of course, you are listening to country/Western music.

[Jim Becker]

Beautiful work, Michael!

[Mark Stutz]

Thanks for the help Jim...hopefully my WW skills are better than my com,puter skills!

Mark

[Bill Brehme]

Nice bench Mike. I think this really pushes me over the edge...
I was going to neander build my workbench w/ the exception of the milling (to be done on tailed tools).
Well, dammit , I'm going to quit turning into a tool collector/restorer and do the milling by hand also!!!
And Mike, I have you to thank for giving me that nudge!

Well, that - and - its getting nice and crispy cool out in the shop this time of year!!!

Cheers!