My new workbench

[robmill54]

G'Dat all, I'd like to introduce myself to everyone. I'm from the United States and live in Florida. I've been a woodworker and boatbuilder for 30 years. After working on plywood benches for years, I finally got around to building my dream workbench. Thought you might like to see it.
The bench is made from white oak and has been built completely by hand.

The trestle base is made with wedged through mortise and tenon joinery. I made the wedges out of ziricote.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g148/robmill54/P1010051.jpg

I draw bored the base together with dowels that I made from ziricote.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g148/robmill54/P1010052.jpg


The completed base.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g148/robmill54/P1010049.jpg


The end vise is honduras rosewood.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g148/robmill54/workbench18.jpg

All that is left to finish is the tool tray, here is the front vise.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g148/robmill54/workbench16.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g148/robmill54/workbench15.jpg

The completed bench.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g148/robmill54/workbench14-1.jpg

[Wongo]

Very sexy.

Cutting dovetails on a workbench like that must be a joy. Well done mate.:2tsup:

[Waldo]

G'day Robmill54,

Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.

Very nice bench. :2tsup:

A bench like that for me is a long distant maybe one day thing. Nothing beats the reward at the end of a project like that than leaning against it and pondering as you have a vitamin or two.

[boban]

Niiiiiiice. Very Nice

You say White Oak. It looks like what is commonly know here as American Oak. I'm assuming its one and the same?

[Christopha]

Work bench??? You have to be kidding! I would love to be a fly on the wall the first time you hit it with the router, saw (powered or unpowered), drill, chisel etc etc etc.... I have thought of building a similar article but with much shorter legs so it looked ok in the loungeroom with womens magazines artfully dipsplayed thereon and a nice vase with some tastefully arranged plastic flowers as well. ;)

[jmk89]

I love the bench but I know what Chistopha means - I would be terrified of damaging a bench like that. I am glad that I have a sacrificial surface of mdf covered blockboard on rop of my bench - when if gets badly marked, I can just rip it off with a jemmy bar and put a new one on top. I save my limited finishing skills for the projects. But I still would love a bench like yours....

[Scally]

Robmill54
Lovely workbench and welcome to the Forum.

Can you tell me "what is ziricote"?

They look like some serious tenons.

What do you plan to build now you have such a flash workbench?

[jisk]

Beautiful bench.

What are its dimensions?

[Fencepost2]

All benches aint benches. That's a piece of furniture.:2tsup:

[Poppa]

Lovely bench. I hope to make something similar but with draws underneath next year. I second Scally's question - ziricote?

[Burnsy]

Beautiful bench, I agree that it is to flash to scratch up and cut. That said I think it would look equally good after 50 years of hard work added even more character.

[bigAl]

G'day RobMill and welcome.

Great job on the bench.

For what it's worth, I finished my bench about 4 years ago http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/showthread.php?p=52031#post52031 and it's still going strong after a few dents here and there, so don't sweat the scratches too much, they're patina.

[bsrlee]

Lovely woodwork.

Florida? How well does it float in a hurricane?:U

[les88]

Great work,
too good to use IMO:2tsup::2tsup:
les

[orraloon]

Welcome RobMill,
Great bench. Just love the look of that oak.

Regards
John

[chrisp]

Robmill54,

What a good looking bench.:2tsup:

[Scally]

Ziricote (Cordia dodencandra)


There is a bit of information here
http://www.alliedlutherie.com/ziricoblackwd.htm

A dense African timber.

It certainly looks good in contrast with the oak.

Sorry but I can't work out how to do the hyperlink???

[Paul B]

Nice work bench!

Ziricote, aka mexican crack wood.

Good stuff for making acoustic guitars, beautiful and pretty expensive. Has a tendancy to crack - at least when making guitars out of thin plates of the stuff. Here's a pic of a guitar made from ziricote, not one of mine.

[robmill54]

Welcome RobMill,
Great bench. Just love the look of that oak.

Regards
John


Sorry for the delay in responding to all the nice comments. To answer some of the questions regarding the bench.
Ziricote is an african hardwood very similar to ebony. I hand a chunk of it hoarded for 20 years figuring somewhere someday, I'd use it. The contrast with the oak is very stunning.
I made the wedged thru mortise and tenon by hand. The base will never come apart.
Here is a pic of the large dovetail in the bench, also cut by hand. I do not own and refuse to use a dovetail jig

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g148/robmill54/P1070060.jpg

The finished dovetail.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g148/robmill54/P1080061.jpg

The oak which you call American oak is 'white oak' . Here in the states there are two kinds of oak, red oak which has is not as durable and white oak which has a tighter grain and is typically used in boatbuilding because of it's great strenght an when quartersawn, beautiful.
I built this bench to do handwork only on, I have another bench that I use to run routers, drills etc.
My wife was kidding me that I'll end up putting a velvet rope around the bench and never use it. :D
I enjoy doing dovetails by hand . here is my current project which I am building. It's a replica of a 1922 Hacker runabout. The boat is honduras mahogany.
Once again thanks for the nice comments and sorry I've been ill lately so I was not online much.
Cheers from America!:2tsup:

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g148/robmill54/boatplanking7.jpg