Okay, so we got up at 4 a.m. this morning and we hit the road around 4:45. It is usually a three and a half hour drive from my house to downtown Atlanta. It was supposed to snow this morning in ATL , so I wanted to give myself a bit of a window. The bride had to be back into Savannah by 3 p.m. for a meeting at the SCAD campus. We were back by 1:30 p.m. missed the snow.
Anyway.
Got the bench home, set up, and gonna get to using it here in a bit.
Also, this thing is VERY sturdy, there is no side to side racking....on the carpet or on the tile, although it will slide across my tile if you lean on it. Standing in front of it on the carpet, it will rock forward and backward just a little bit... I put it on a piece of 1/2 inch plywood that I have... still does it just a bit. So weight wont be used to prevent racking, more so sink it into the carpet fibers to work the feet into a stable footing.
I am very happy with this bench. It literally blows the Sjorberg out of the water. The top is thick, ( i will get all the measurements if somebody wants more than what is on the highland website. ) and the vises are good quality. This is a bench that is very well thought out. Even with it being the small bench, the quality shows and the cost is worth it to me at least. ( I know several of you will say I coulda built one for half of what I paid for it. )
I picked up a block plane today, some water stones ( couldn't spring for the Nortons right now ) a honing guide, a 4 inch square, along with the bench from highland. I went to HD and grabbed a granite tile, some 320 to flatten the chisel backs ( I have some 1500 and 2000 grit to polish them with ) and some 1x3 and 1x4 clear pine to start practing those dovetails ....
On to the pics.