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The Game Changer - or - Two Guys, Two Dogs, and One Incredibly Heavy Workbench
Like every great story, it's best to start at the beginning.
This was my workbench:
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Pretty sure it was pine. The vises weren't great (to put it lightly), but they worked. The worst thing about using it was the way it skated across the floor whenever I tried to do any heavy planing. Jointing with the #8? forget it. I actually knocked it over once using a jack plane across the grain. My woodworking was about 30% ruining boards (the fun stuff) and 70% doing battle with that bench.
Fast forward about a year. I was at IanW's workshop one afternoon shooting the breeze when I brought it up. Ian wasn't having any of it and we decided (meaning he offered) that we would unite our efforts and build the last workbench I would ever need.
We got started at the beginning of August. The first step was to get all of the wood out and milled. Ian had some Queensland Blue Gum (E. tereticornis) from a tree he had felled and milled a few years ago. We sawed the edges off with a band saw, jointed and thicknessed what we could on his 12" machine, and took the rest to Wood 'n You to put through their 20" combo machine (which is awesome...).
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The bench is primarily comprised of two giant boards at ~60mm x 1850mm x 300mm. Incredibly heavy, hard stuff, but also absolutely stunning, especially out on the quartersawn grain.
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From there, we used a router jig to cut the slots for the rectangular bench dogs. They were oriented leaning 2 degrees toward the clamping surface. The dog board is Spotted Gum.
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Following this, we glued up the top, which, from front to back, is a vertical skirt board, a vertical dog board, and then the benchtop proper. At this point it was beginning to look like something.
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This is where, in my opinion, it got really fun (not that it wasn't already). The bench consists of a front vise and an end vise, both of which are made wholly by hand. This involved a handful of big, chunky dovetail joints, some very precise work, and some fitting and refitting. This was the first time I had made anything which involved moving parts that weren't box tops, doors, or drawers. The screws are threaded wooden spindles made from super hard outback timbers which Ian had stored for a rainy day. Most of the vise parts are Blue Gum, but there is a bit of Spotted Gum and Tallowwood thrown in for good measure, not to mention Tallowwood is a greasy timber which is good for sliding parts.
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The entire process was memorable, but likely the most memorable operation was the tapping of the vise screw holes. We had to cut 2" threads into a 60mm piece of Blue Gum, which, in addition to being hard as hell, is pretty gummy and sticky. The tap looks like any other tap, only on a giant scale. The only way we were ultimately able to do it with TWO grown men was to put 3ft extension rods on either side of the tap handle and walk in a circle. The process reminded me of that scene at the beginning of Conan the Barbarian when he gets kidnapped as a kid and made to push that big mill around, and then it flashes forward and he's grown up to become Arnold Schwarzenegger. Neither Ian nor myself got to be the Governor of California, unfortunately... but we did treat ourselves to lunch immediately afterward.
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The vises have sacrificial jaws which are made from Celtis, or Chinese Hackberry. We decided to use this stuff and Ian said "Ok, while you're doing that I'll mill some Celtis". I assumed that meant run it over the jointer, but all of a sudden I hear a two-stroke engine, and I soon realize he meant it quite literally...
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I didn't get any photos of the undercarriage assembly process. It's four posts with stretchers between them connected with mortise and tenon joints. As opposed to using bolts to secure the long stretchers, we used through tenons with Buloke tusks. This is the assembled but unfinished bench.
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After getting it to my house, I applied two coats of danish oil, drilled some round dog holes for holding oddly shaped pieces with the front vise, and completed all of the smaller, accessory parts like the bench dogs and the vise handles. Here are some photos of the finished product in-situ.
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I'm going to guess it weighs about 200kg, it's capable of clamping a 2m board, and every scrap of wood in it came from right here in Sunny Queensland.
All in all it took about a month, which was mostly due to me losing about 2 weeks to field work. We initially discussed it taking about a week. We may have been able to do that if we hadn't spent many hours chatting, drinking coffee, and taking long lunch breaks, but where's the fun in that? I came out of it with the best workbench I've ever even seen (much less owned), I learned a lot, and I think I can safely say we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
I'll one day take this back to the U.S. The finish may fade. It may get scratched, dented, scarred, or stained here and there, but I will always truly appreciate every minute spent using it as well as every minute spent making it.
Cheers,
Luke