Retop of an old friend

**Horaldic** · 8th March 2018, 01:28 AM

G’day Folks

I have an old and faithful workbench that my father built when I was a small child.

I’m going through the process of getting rid of clutter in my workshop and making my tools more easily accessible. When I did an assessment of this bench it was clear that it needed to either be rejigged or got rid of.

I have decided that it’s time for it to have a few revisions and updates because in its existing configuration it’s really lacking in versatility; there are no dog holes and the top has bowed at one end.

The bench is built solidly in what I’d describe as a manual training style, from Tas oak. I suspect it may be E. Regnans from the grain and density and the fact that my father, who was a technical teacher at the time, built it as a demonstration project in Tasmania.

The existing top is 32mm thick down both sides, supported by side skirts, with a shallow dip in the middle utilising a thinner board for that section of top. This is quite annoying as it traps shavings but isn’t deep enough to keep tools clear of work.

I salvaged a big solid rough-sawn brace beam from a demolished house which I have gone about squaring and dressing with hand planes. This will give me sufficient timber to replace the bowed board.

My intention is to reuse the remaining flat section of top and replace both the shallow portion and bowed section in order to have a thicker top, more suited to the more hand-tool focussed work I favour.

This is will do for an introduction for now. I’ll post some pictures and updates as I progress.

**cava** · 8th March 2018, 08:56 AM

Sounds like a great project.

Certainly waiting for the pictures....

**Horaldic** · 20th March 2018, 12:35 AM

So, the other day I went out to the shed with no real intent, just doing a bit tidying up and giving a chisel handle a final buff following burnishing.

I started looking for a third board for my bench top and I pulled out one which I had scrawled on the end grain in texta “t oak - 42x185”. I set it up and went over the edge with a #7 - swish, “that was easier than expected”, I gave it a couple more passes until I had a full width, full length shaving, all the time thinking “this board feels almost soft”. So, I turned it and shaved the other edge. It was the same.

I checked it over, thoroughly, nice straight grain, a couple of thin gum veins but otherwise great structure. Feeling the faint dawn of realisation, I pulled out the shorter of the boards I’d been working the other week from the stack and passed the plane over one edge. Still doable, but obviously substantially harder.

Sitting the two boards side-by-side I could see a different grain structure in my earlier timber, tighter, more variable and interlocked, it was also more straw-grey in colour as opposed to the amber hue of the “t oak” board, a very different scent came from the shavings too. The earlier board was obviously heavier.

It was at this point that my little helper came and called me inside.

I had a few calls on my time, and didn’t get back there ‘til late this arvo but I came armed with “Timbers of Australia” it took me a few minutes of comparison and I can’t be certain of this but I think my former brace beam may well be Tasmanian Blue Gum. This might explain why it was so hard on standard Stanley plane irons. Certainly the Tas Oak board planed more like a softwood by comparison.

I’m now considering the merits of mixed species in my new bench top. I’ll have to check whether there are different movement rates in response to moisture.

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