Another bench

[Harlan Barnhart]

Here is a bench I have been working on for months. Since I work in the kitchen, everything must be easily knocked down and cleaned up. The top is laminated 5/4" white oak and the base is douglas fir, all construction waste. The oak came from a long pallet, which gave me the length, approx. 5 1/2 feet. It is only 22 inches wide since that is where the oak ran out.

I have a vise screw which will hopefully be incorporated into some sort of tail vise and I hope to add a hook on the left front corner and an adjustable deadman for edge planning. For now I secure work with a holdfast and handscrews.

The laminations were glued right off the table saw since I was too lazy to join by hand. I "joined" by running them through the table saw vertically. There are two gaps that bother me a little but for the most part it worked great. I haven't leveled the bottom of the top since it is down to just over 1 1/2" at one corner and I didn't want to loose any more thickness. The holdfast (from TFWW) seems to work well even with a thin top. If anything it holds too well, it's not easy to release.

The top is surprisingly heavy (maybe 100 lbs) but it still moves around with vigorous planning so I clamp it to the post you see in the picture.

[Jonathan McCullough]

That's fantastic. I would have given my eyeteeth for something like that when I lived in Brooklyn. How does the joinery hold up when you're planing? Does it ever sort of cant back and forth like a parallelogram? I've been thinking of making something very much like that, but much more robust, like legs of laminated 4 x 4's, like 8 x 8's. They'd be so heavy it would be good to have the ability to knock the thing down if I needed to move it.

[Martin Peek]

I love the tusks!

[Jim Koepke]

Innovative way to a solution with materials at hand.

jim

[Harlan Barnhart]

That's fantastic. I would have given my eyeteeth for something like that when I lived in Brooklyn. How does the joinery hold up when you're planing? Does it ever sort of cant back and forth like a parallelogram? I've been thinking of making something very much like that, but much more robust, like legs of laminated 4 x 4's, like 8 x 8's. They'd be so heavy it would be good to have the ability to knock the thing down if I needed to move it.

It's very rigid and quick to knock down. I wouldn't build a permanent bench that way but for one that needs to be moved it's an acceptable solution. Increasing the width of the streachers would increase the rigidity even more but that is the lumber I had on hand.