Well, I'm doing more and more handsawing. At the very least, the breakdown of stock before moving it to the table saw. In the last year I picked up an A.C. Atkins 5-1/2pt rip and Diston D-8 11pt crosscut. While neither saw will win any beauty contests, they both work pretty well and I've learned a little bit about tuning up a saw.
To that end, I've been experimenting with making saw benches. Just some Douglas Fir and SPF mystery wood from the Borg. These are loosely based on the design I saw in one of Chris Schwarz's posts. Also I've looked at the benches Jr. has in his traveling shop. I more-or-less took the birds mouth design from his benches.
I've learned a few things already about what I like and don't like. I'm still making up my mind about the stretchers. So far they haven't been a problem for me. Gotten some feed back against their use and instead having legs M&T'd into the bottom side of the bench with a center T stretcher if needed.
Jr.'s bench doesn't have the long horizontal stretcher, instead I believe he has shorter stretchers forming an A-frame.
These were an 80/20 project, about 80% handtool and 20% power. I did all the cross cutting by hand and all the ripping by hand. However because my ripping skills are lacking (practice!) I decided to use the table saw to re-rip and bevel the sides of the benchtops to accept the legs. This was instead of letting in the legs so they were flush. But cutting the dados and joints was all hand work. Decided to use screws, as clamps while the liquid hide glue set, this time instead of pinning all the joints so cordless drill-driver for that but I drove all the screws with a Yankee twist driver.
A brace and bit was used for cutting the hole that makes up the back of the birds-mouth. Again, thanks Jr.
Fun, simple project and I learned a lot. Biggest tip was to mark-out all leg joinery from the FLOOR end of the leg. Duh! Of course that works better and makes it much more likely I'll have a level bench. Then all I had to do was trim away the excess at the top and plane flush. Worked slick, just wish my garage floor was as level as the table saw top...
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Originally Posted by Chuck Saunders
Jr. 
