Squaring The Ends The next task was to trim and square the ends of the bench top. The top is 5" thick and I need to do it with a handsaw. The first step was to cut a kerf around the ends with my Veritas Combination plane and the kerfing plate I made for it. … Continue reading Workbench Build — 2019, Part 9

The Short Stretchers I chose a cutoff from one of the thick barn beams for the short side stretchers. This meant I needed to resaw it in half. Before I set up the bandsaw I thought I'd try my freshly sharpened old rip saw and see how far I could get. It's a great old … Continue reading Workbench Build — 2019, Part 8

The Long Stretchers The long front and back stretchers came from a piece of the barn wood that didn't seem like great wood at first. It was darkened from age and the ends were too dirty to show the grain direction. I clean them up with a scrub plane and a jack and was quite … Continue reading Workbench Build — 2019, Part 7

The Top Sliding Dovetails The mortises for the straight tenons were cut but we can't fit them until the sliding dovetails are cut as well. I started by cutting a knife wall for the saw to follow. The cut starts with the saw vertical until it can be tilted to the angle of the dovetail. … Continue reading Workbench Build — 2019, Part 6

The Top Mortises With the leg tenons cut it was time to chop the mortises and sliding dovetails. This post is on the through mortises. They are large and the top is 5" thick. Getting perfect presentation joints is not the top priority. I'm going for strength and will wedge the joints from the top … Continue reading Workbench Build — 2019, Part 5

The Leg Joints After the top was glued and flattened a bit it was time to start working on the legs. The top joint is going to be the Roubo double tenon sliding dovetail joint seen here. In order to get everything out of the old barn beams I had to figure out how to … Continue reading Workbench Build — 2019, Part 4

Jointing And Gluing The Top The beams were cleaned up and flattened a bit. Now I had to start jointing them for gluing. Here are some of the tools: my Stanley No. 5, my ECE Primus joiner, and my good square. Getting a good joint in wood that's almost six inches thick is a challenge. … Continue reading Workbench Build — 2019, Part 3

Starting The Top I surfaced the beams enough to get a good look at the grain and quality of the wood. Once I surfaced the beams to a rough state I went through them and selected the best ones for the top. I was hoping there would be four good ones and there were. Lucky! … Continue reading Workbench Build — 2019, Part 2

NOTE: This post is the start of new content on the blog. I needed a good workbench for my shop for a long time. My existing bench is what we call a Frankenbench. It's been pieced together over time with leftover wood from other projects. It is the wrong size for me and limits what … Continue reading Workbench Build — 2019, Part 1