Thread: Long-overdue workbench build

Looks great Doug. Whar are you going to use as a finish?

Look fantastic Doug,
Will the Number 1 Boss Lady, be breaking a bottle of very expensive French champagne over the end when it’s done.

Cheers Matt

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

Looks great Doug. Whar are you going to use as a finish?

Finish will be my Grandfather's special bench finish: 1 part BLO, 1 part pure gum terpentine and as much beeswax as you can dissolve into it

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Will the Number 1 Boss Lady, be breaking a bottle of very expensive French champagne over the end when it’s done.

If she is real lucky she might get a paint brush and a can of Grandad's special recipe, after that we can drink the champagne. No sense in wasting it.

Just read this from start to finish. Thanks for sharing and taking all of us along with you. Very inspiring. I like the sound of your finishing recipe. Where do you get the beeswax?

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

Where do you get the beeswax?

I have picked up a fair bit over the years at markets, just from talking to honey sellers.

More recently my stepdaughter decided to make her fortune making and selling candles and bath bombs at markets. She did about three markets and sold next to nothing because everyone else was selling candles and/or both bombs too. When it all got too hard she just left her large block of beeswax in my shed.

Small compensation for having to clean up the mess she made when she took it upon herself to try to cut up beeswax on my bandsaw.

Since the last update I have continued doing little bits of work to the bench, in between other proects, depending on if the weather is warm enough to get out to the shed at all. It's kind of getting down to the final stages now and a lot of the work I have done in the last month will not even be visible except by those who want to crawl around under the bench.

Today I got the endvise cap finished and glued on. Not really a lot to see but I took a picture anyway.

20200827_164831.jpg

Tomorrow when the glue is dry, I need to turn the benchtop over again, remove the tailvise to clean it up and drill a couple of holes in it, remount the tailvise then turn the bench back the right way up FOR THE LAST TIME. I will put a coat of oil over the bottom of the benchtop before I turn it back over.


I had some time left before coming in for dinner, while waiting for the glue-up to dry, so I cut some leather for the vise faces because I think they should be going on in the next day or two. They will be glued on and then trimmed to size.

20200827_184318.jpg

Once the top is flipped back over the tooltray can go on (all joinery is done, it's just a matter of putting glue in the dovetails and banging them together) then making a chop for the shoulder vise, putting the leather vise faces on both vises then a coat of the workbench finish.

At that point it will be a fully functional bench. There will still be little additions to make after that such as bench dogs, fancy vise handles (instead of just using a dowel to turn the vise screws) and of course various bench accessories like moxon vise, bench-hooks shooting boards etc, but they are all really add-ons to a functioning bench rather than part of the bench build itself.

So the reality is that I'm a couple of glue-ups and a bit of sanding and finishing short of finishing the bench. The celebration will have to be a quiet one due to stage 4 lockdown in Melbourne.

Hi Doug. Must be satisfying to get this close to the end of a long project. Make enough noise with your celebrations and I might just be able to hear them. It's warming up too, so you can spend more time at the bench.

I’m mildly getting excited,about next Friday Doug,
For the big unveiling,
I’m hoping too see some fantastic stuff come of that bench.

Cheers Matt.

Originally Posted by Simplicity

I’m mildly getting excited,about next Friday Doug,
For the big unveiling,
I’m hoping too see some fantastic stuff come of that bench.

I can see something like this in my future, Matt.


toolchest.jpg

The timber is in the shed just waiting for me to have a bench to build it on.

Might have to do the Moxon Vise first though with all those dovetails to cut.

Originally Posted by doug3030

I can see something like this in my future, Matt.


toolchest.jpg

The timber is in the shed just waiting for me to have a bench to build it on.

Might have to do the Moxon Vise first though with all those dovetails to cut.

Is that a small Bench one,
Or a large floor Tool box,it’s hard to judge scale.

Cheers Matt

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Is that a small Bench one, Or a large floor Tool box,it’s hard to judge scale.

It's a large floor one. I will need the space to hold all the tools I am making.

It's the Annarchists Toolchest. Mr Google will find you all you want to know.

toolchest1.jpg

I actually declared the bench "finished" back in October 2020 or thereabouts. I just dropped in to post a picture of how it is holding up after six months when I just gave it a quick cleanup consisting of a wipe down and a light sand with 180 grit, checking all the metal fasteners for correct tension and gave it another coat of finish. I then realized that I had not posted any pics of the complete bench here.

I posted lots of pictures of the finished bench on various facebook pages and other social media and it was featured on the Friday Lunch Prattle. Friday lunch prattle

I seem to recall that someone was giving me the $h!ts on here at the time (I sincerely hope he has gotten on top of his issues and is doing better now) so I wasn't posting much on the forum at that time. Never mind. I might pull out a few of the pics of the newly completed bench and post them in this thread for posterity one day soon if there's any interest. It's really just a bunch of sexy dovetails and beautiful timber.

Meanwhile, hers's a quick pic of how she is standing up to six months of reasonably heavy use, after the overhaul described above:

20210310_141243.jpg

Barely a scratch or dent to be seen - unless you know where to look.

I probably would have made a few more of my planned bench accessories by now but a bunch of blokes decided to start a plane-making challenge and I weakened and let them divert my from my chosen course.

I hope to get the Moxon Vise done soon (soon is a very relative term in my shed) so that I can use it for dovetailing the tool chest which will roll in under the tailvise just nicely when not in use.

Things are starting to come together.

Come on Doug, Is that beautiful bench a "show pony" or what...
You needed to add a few random tools or a little sawdust to the photo
BUT MAN is it gorgeous,
Looks way to good, a piece of woodworking art for use in the shed!
Enjoy it sir and make it proud of all your effort to build it, both you & it deserve it.
Cheers, Peter

Originally Posted by doug3030

20210310_141243.jpg

Barely a scratch or dent to be seen - unless you know where to look.

I like the adoption of both round and rectangular dog holes: Very versatile.

Regards
Paul