One more bench

[Daniel Kennedy]

This forum along with Chris Schwarz's book and blog have given me all the ideas for my bench. I thought I would share a few pictures. I just completed it last week. It is not all that different from Mike Sobik's bench. Mine is made of beech which I just happened to get a good deal on. I attached the top with through tenons. I also thought I would post a picture of my tool cabinet (also inspired by this forum) and the first project I have completed with the bench (the step stool from FWW). Avert your eyes if you don't like hand tool gloats.
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[Daniel Kennedy]

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[Daniel Kennedy]

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[Justin Green]

Nice bench! My wife wants a similar step stool, too!

[Victor Stearns]

Nice Bench, But the plane(S) look nice too.
Victor

[Mark Norman]

Very well done Daniel!!

[Michael Sobik]

That looks great! How do you like the big twin screw in the end position? Did you need to reinforce the underside of the bench for the sliding vice? I put angle iron in the groove, but since the groove itself is so far back, I'm wondering if that was really necessary.

[Joel Runyan]

I love the wane on the sliding vise chop. Is there a reason you made through mortises in the top? And did you bolt the legs for ease of assembly or just so you could take it apart?

[Daniel Kennedy]

Thank you all for the comments.

For the big twin screw in the end position: It works well so far. I think I would rather have a wagon vise in that position at this point. It may just take some time to get used to. I like the leg vises a lot more.

For the sliding leg vise: I am not sure that I needed to reinforce it, but I did anyway. I did set the grove back the distance of 2 boards, but I also put angle iron in there. I used 1.25 with .25 thickness. It wasn't hard to put in there since I had the idea during construction. I wouldn't want to retrofit one of those in there.

For the through mortises: I am not sure I have a great reason for those. From all the reading I have done, it seems that those were traditional. I had the idea that I would make this bench so that it would be possible to disassemble. After all the effort it took to push the top down onto those tenons, I don't think I'll ever get the top off, even if I wanted to. One thing I did to to make the through mortises a bit easier was to cut away some stock from the boards that they went through before I laminated them in place, that way I only had to chisel a narrow bit of wood to complete the mortise once the top was completed.

[Steve Pirrelli]

Wow those legs look massive. How thick is the top?

[Daniel Kennedy]

Wow those legs look massive. How thick is the top?
The top is 4.75" thick. I would have made it thicker, but finding enough lumber for the top was hard enough already. Incidentally all of the wood used here was dimensioned to the same final size 1.75"X4.75". There were a couple ugly spots and defects that I put on the bottom.
Now that it is done though, I believe that it is definitely heavy enough for my purposes. It hasn’t budged under the forces that I generate using hand tools. I have moved it back and forth on the floor a few feet to get it exactly where I need it for work.

[Dennis Peacock]

Nice bench.!!! I like it. :D :cool:

[Rory Talkington]

Oh....you mean that nice looking cabinet behind those great looking tools? :D