A total newbie from the Far East , first woodworking project- base of a work bench

[yw shun]

As a new guest to your great forum, i would like to say hello to all you creekers here. First i would like to apologise for my broken english in the following description as I am a non english speaking Chinese from Hong Kong, who don't like to crosscheck my post for any possible errors...:D

Few months ago when I first came across this wonderful woodworking forum, I was totally amazed at the craftmanship you guys showed here. Saliva kept drooling all over my keyboard for some unknown reasons. :( I was almost speechless when i learnt that many of you don't even do this for a living. With the skills you guys have, probably you can earn a fortune by making quality wood furniture here for the rich and famous.:rolleyes: In fact, with the endless supply of cheap labour from China sitting right behing us here, quality furniture is a rarity nowadays. We are flooded with dirt cheap furniture of "not-so-great" quality from China. Unless one is willing to pay a fortune for those imported furniture say from Europe, we are stuck with all these unattractive MDF wooden furniture that you guys can probably make in few hours time. We used to be able to buy some better stuff at a reasonable price say 10 years ago form some local furniture maker here. Now that they are either closed or moved to China, we are left with no choice.

Having seen what do guys did in the States, I started wondering if I can build the furniture I like with the solid hardwood I can get hold of here. I finally managed to buy the black walnut from a small timber company here. I have never seen the wood before I dropped the deposit.(As a matter of fact, they just ordered the lumber for me from a factory somewhere in China. The company didn't even know where the walnut actually come from) It turned out that quite a number of them have a great proportion of lightcolored sapwood in them. ($30HKD for each feet of the 2'x2' log)

The wood was joined with either 'through' or blind tendon and mortices. The tendon and mortice was made with chisels and handsaw while they are joined with epoxy to make up the "less-than-perfect" fit of the joint:o The finish was done with 2 layers of OSMO hardwax oil (clear) from Germany. The craftmanship is nowhere comparable to the masters here I must say.
By the way while I was trimming the mortise with the chisels, the police has come to my apartment because of the noise I made and annoyed the neighbours.

Hope one day I can finish the top with the vise I like.

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Welcome to the creek! We are glad to have you as a member! It amazes me the international nature of this forum.

So far, your bench is looking great! You are well on your way to a very high quality bench.

[Tim Morton]

Welcome, and don't worry about your broken english, you will find we also use alot of broken english here:D( and, I bet your chinese is better than ours!!) Your table base look GREAT!!!! very much in proportion, and looks very solid.

[Tom Jones III]

The blonde streaks are the price we pay for working with walnut. It seems like we go through phases at local lumber yards. Sometimes I can look through an entire stack of walnut and find nothing but blonde. Other times I can pick out a truck full of walnut with almost no blonde streaks. Once you have worked with walnut, you will never want to work with anything else.

Welcome to the forum and congrats on the base, it is looking great.

[Darrick Robbins]

Welcome to the forum. I am always amazed at the lengths that we will go to work with wood. Even I don't know if I would be doing this if I still lived in an apartment, had to order wood sight unseen for what seem to be exorbitant prices, and my finish material came from Germany (not to mention the interference of local police). I hope that the time spent working with wood brings you the many hours of relaxation it brings me.

Darrick:)

[Jim Becker]

Welcome!! And that's a fine start on your woodworking endeavors!! I like your shop floor, too...looks comfortable on the feet...hee hee ;)

[Jon Olson]

Welcome from the west coast of CA....Glad you were able to join us...don't feel to bad about your spelling or your english...there are quite a few of us who are not great with our own language. :)

Welcome.

Jon

[David Wilson]

Welcome aboard. This is a great place to learn and sometimes teach.

In my case it is all learning.

[Bryan Nuss]

Welcome to the Creek! Its great to have you join our group. Thanks for posting your photos. The joinery on your work looks very good and is, I suspect, better than you described in your text. I too used to do some woodworking in an apartment when I was in the "married apartments" at University, and can appreciate your problems.

There is no need to apologize for your English ... it is very good. I look forward to seeing more posts from you.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Wecome to the 'Creek! Neat place to exchange information! Don't worry about your English or your spelling....we don't worry about ours.....Again Welcome.

[Dev Emch]

You just made my day! I am laughing so load. I love it.

First, your well on way to getting that bench done and the two tone walnut is just lovely. That finish is pretty as well. Sometimes walnut is very dark and makes the room look gloom but yours seems to be a bit lighter and warmer. Very nice.

We can appreciate the problems you have in working in the apartments. When I first got started, I was running an oliver industrial planer in my aunts garage. The police showed up and we were all yelling at each other because of the noise.

The workbench is one of the best tools you can have. You will be amazed at how much easier it is make things when this is done. Make sure you install your dog track and tail vise. I use the tail vise and dogs more often than I use the front vise. You should have both. But the tail vise is harder to retrofit later on.

Best of luck and welcome...

[John Hart]

Good bunch of people with lots to learn... We all learn something new every day!
欢迎!!

[Walt Pater]

Excellent first post, Shun. What determination! Did you like vacuuming the sawdust up from the carpet? Your table base looks great. Don't worry about the English- my chinese is pretty lousy, and Craftmanship is a language that we all (try to) speak.
GOOD LUCK!!!!

[Cecil Arnold]

Welcome, and well done on your bench. We all learn from each other and are continully building skills with each other's help, some of which we may never use again and others we will use daily. That's what makes the creek such a great place.

[Erin Raasch]

Welcome to the forum! Your workbench base looks great - the joinery is very nicely done, and the walnut is just beautiful. :) I'm working on a bench myself, and just finished the base. I hope to have a top on it soon so I can actually work on it. :D I'm grateful that I have a garage shop to work in and that I don't have to vacuum sawdust, but it's neat that you've found room for some woodworking.

Your English is fine - we all speak the language of wood here. :p

Glad to have you on board - I always enjoy a peek into other countries and cultures, and enjoy seeing how things are done in other parts of the world.

Erin

[John Miliunas]

First, welcome to the Creek! Probably the friendliest place on the Net and tons of super information provided, of course, by some of the most knowledgeable woodworkers around! (Ah, I'm just speaking on behalf of the other folks now!:rolleyes: ) I must comend you on your wonderful workmanship, especially given the circumstances under which you work! As someone else said, I'm not too sure I'd be doing much or any of this if I had to work out of an apartment! :) You've got a great start on what I'm sure will be a splendid addition to your tool arsenal. I had never thought of making the base for a bench out of Walnut and am now sorry I didn't! That looks quite classy, IMHO! Keep up the great work and please, keep us posted on progress!:) :cool:

[yw shun]

You guys are just lovely. Thank you for all of your kind words, most of which probably I don't deserve:o People say woodworkers are usually nice and easy to get along with in contrast to blacksmith who works with metal. They are probably right!

Apart from those exotic wood that I have probably no chance to work with without losing an arm or leg, Walnut are always my favourite. That is probably because Walnut congee , a relatively common chinese dessert is my all time favourite since childhood.:p
http://www.hkcg.com/tgweb/txteng/cooking/recipes_content.asp?con=65&

I am wondering what the difference in price would be between lumbars of similar dimensions but with different proportion of sapwood in the States. I can understand the sharp contrast between them and heartwood may make some interesting objects at times. But the more I looked at the chocolate -brown heartwood the more I regreted not having reject the wood from the timber company. Anyway I will learn to live with that , I know

Darrick, you are right. With all those limitations from the environment, I must say I still enjoyed every minute of it. You could probably imagine how my living room looked like 1 hour after I played wiht the sander. It was fun though it took me another 2-3hours to clean up every inch of the walls and floors covered with saw dust. As for the carpet, surprisingly they looked like new after vacuuming for twice. And yes they are comfortable on the feet, I mean bare feet:D So think about it when you want to renovate your workshops.

Erin, thanks again for your compliment. I have seen the joints in your bench's legs and they are TIGHT:eek: , you must have bought it from IKEA, don't tell me otherwise, I wouldn't believe it:mad: . The next moment I examined what I have done with mine, well........the joint are also....tighttt... OK OK I mean i am pretty sure the now hardened epoxy has hold the tendon and mortise tight as I can clearly see a thin layer of it between the bonding surface:D

I will be back asking stupid ultra-newbie questions when I have saved enough money to buy the timber for the 4" thick Walnut top I hope to made(this time if I have the money, it must be some nice looking heartwood, no question about it). Thanks again to all you creekers here, enjoy your woodworking as much as you can. Who knows what you guys will become in your next life, maybe someone born in a small city, confined in a small apart and encircled by angry neighbours with bat-like ultra-sensitive ears. :mad: Oh... I start to be envious of you guys again... where is my medicine?

[Alan Turner]

Welcome to SMC, and nice work on your bench. One of our members here lives in NYC, which is quite a space challenged place, and he too works wook in an apartment, but only with hand tools. The hours he can work are quite limited becuase of the noise.

Good luck finding the wood you are seeking.

[Michael Ballent]

You guys are just lovely. Thank you for all of your kind words, most of which probably I don't deserve:o People say woodworkers are usually nice and easy to get along with in contrast to blacksmith who works with metal. They are probably right!

Apart from those exotic wood that I have probably no chance to work with without losing an arm or leg, Walnut are always my favourite. That is probably because Walnut congee , a relatively common chinese dessert is my all time favourite since childhood.:p
http://www.hkcg.com/tgweb/txteng/cooking/recipes_content.asp?con=65&

I am wondering what the difference in price would be between lumbars of similar dimensions but with different proportion of sapwood in the States. I can understand the sharp contrast between them and heartwood may make some interesting objects at times. But the more I looked at the chocolate -brown heartwood the more I regreted not having reject the wood from the timber company. Anyway I will learn to live with that , I know

Darrick, you are right. With all those limitations from the environment, I must say I still enjoyed every minute of it. You could probably imagine how my living room looked like 1 hour after I played wiht the sander. It was fun though it took me another 2-3hours to clean up every inch of the walls and floors covered with saw dust. As for the carpet, surprisingly they looked like new after vacuuming for twice. And yes they are comfortable on the feet, I mean bare feet:D So think about it when you want to renovate your workshops.

Erin, thanks again for your compliment. I have seen the joints in your bench's legs and they are TIGHT:eek: , you must have bought it from IKEA, don't tell me otherwise, I wouldn't believe it:mad: . The next moment I examined what I have done with mine, well........the joint are also....tighttt... OK OK I mean i am pretty sure the now hardened epoxy has hold the tendon and mortise tight as I can clearly see a thin layer of it between the bonding surface:D

I will be back asking stupid ultra-newbie questions when I have saved enough money to buy the timber for the 4" thick Walnut top I hope to made(this time if I have the money, it must be some nice looking heartwood, no question about it). Thanks again to all you creekers here, enjoy your woodworking as much as you can. Who knows what you guys will become in your next life, maybe someone born in a small city, confined in a small apart and encircled by angry neighbours with bat-like ultra-sensitive ears. :mad: Oh... I start to be envious of you guys again... where is my medicine?

Obviously we have different walnut trees here than those in your part of the world. The price you mentioned for your wood was 30 HKD which translates to $3.85, over here in the Phoenix AZ area it costs a lot more. Black walnut is $6.99 a board foot (12"x12"x1" or 30.5cm x 30.5cm x 2.54cm) Hardwoods are usually sold by different widths and lengths. There are www sites out there that ship, just not sure what it would cost to ship something as heavy as wood all the way to HK :D.

Your bench is starting off VERY nicely. Keep showing us what you are doing we love to share our knowledge, well except for me I do not know what I am doing of the time ;)

[Martin Shupe]

Obviously we have different walnut trees here than those in your part of the world.

YW Shun,

First, welcome to the board, I think we will all agree that we hope to see more posts from you in the future. Your workmanship looks first rate to me. You also sound just like me, a perfectionist working with a material that is sometimes imperfect and even moves after you are done working with it. Not that I can blame the majority of my mistakes on the wood itself. :D As far as the sapwood goes, I wouldn't worry about it in your bench, but if I were making a piece of furniture, I would be more concerned. Just my opinion, and I understand if you would prefer the bench to have no sapwood.

Second, I have to make some comments in reference to what Michael said above. YW said that he got his wood, sight unseen, from a factory in China. Now, I will be the first to admit that I know nothing about Chinese tree species. I know there is an English walnut, but I have not heard of a Chinese walnut. If there is one, I apologize in advance for my following comments. Which brings me to my point....

Mainland China, Europe, and Japan are buying boatloads of whole logs of the major American hardwood species. Cherry, walnut, and now even oak, are being shipped by the entire log in container ships even as we speak. They are buying our best logs, the veneer logs, the cream of the crop, and they are paying top dollar. Great, you think, why should I care? I will try to explain.

The money in forestry is not made when the tree is cut down. Granted, some money is made then, but most of it is made when the log is converted in the mill to the final product, either lumber or plywood. Downstream, there is more money to be made when the lumber is made into furniture, which used to take place in places like Michigan, NY, and the Carolinas.

Most of you know me as a pilot, but in my former life I earned a BS and MS in Forestry. I did an economics paper once, and wrote that at that time (early 1980's) the Japanese were logging our trees off the Tongass, putting the logs on ships that were really floating mills, and selling plywood at the Port of Houston that was undercutting the price of plywood grown and produced in the south. How could they do this? Because Congress gave them a rediculously lucrative cutting contract to mine our national resources out of the Tongass! In short, we were stupid, or a deal was cut and we were sold out by our own leadership.

Why do I mention this? Because it is happening again. Folks, the bell is tolling for the American furniture manufacturing sector. In twenty years, (or less) it will be like the steel mills, gone for good. Unless you can afford Thomas Moser (and I hope he survives, because I love his stuff, not that I can afford it either), you will not be able to buy quality furniture that is made in America.

What's worse, is what they do with the very best logs. They turn them into paper thin veneer and slap them on cheap particle board, and sell the poor quality furniture at Walmart and IKEA. IMHO, our best logs should be made into a finished product that is worthy of their beauty. "Furniture hand crafted with a reverence for wood" is my motto. The beauty of the wood should be respected, not wasted.

Now for the forestry aspect... The increase in stumpage prices is great for the landowners, but I worry about the stewardship of our forests. Don't worry about our National Forests, the Sierra Club has effectively shut down the NF's for commercial logging, not that I agree with that, either. What worries me is the private landowner (who I think now produces most of our commercial timber) "high grading" his property by cutting the very best trees, and not managing the remaining trees for the next generation.

Too many businesses in this country are so short sighted they only worry about the next quarterly statement, to their long term detriment. I used to think that forestry was different, that foresters planned for the long term, to make sure that the forests we leave our grandchildren are healthy and productive. I worry that this is already changing. Our NF's are being managed by politicians and the courts, instead of scientists as they should be. Our very best timber resources are being shipped overseas and turned into "furniture" that will not last one generation, much less to be used by our grandchildren.

If I won the lotto tomorrow, I would buy as much land as I could and grow walnut and cherry trees for my great grandchildren to harvest.

Gifford Pinchot's concept of forest management was that the country's forests should be managed "for the greatest good, for the greatest number of people, for the long term". It is the long term that has me most concerned.

Back to YW's walnut... I'd be willing to bet that his walnut came from our backyard, and was "leftovers" from one of those mills making cheap furniture out of veneer logs.

Whew! Sorry I got off on a rant. It was not directed at anyone, especially Michael and YW, but I would be interested to hear your comments, and especially from YW about the existence of Chinese walnut trees and whether they are used for commercial lumber or just for nuts for dessert. ;)

[yw shun]

Martin, thanks for your compliment. No, I hope but I can't be a perfertionist in woodworking with all the limitations here esp space/land price.:(

I am in no way related to the timber/furniture making industry, thus anything I say may not represent the truth. Anyway I have checked with Google, apparently there is no walnut species native to China. The guy in the timber company has mentioned something like English walnut but as he was not sure himself, it may well be from the States, who knows. The walnut I bought probably came from a furniture making factory in mainland China, just as what Martin has suggested. I had complained of the sapwood when the logs arrived and the guy said he had no control of what will be sent here either.:eek: So Martin, your guess of the walnut being some sort of leftover makes sense. The best stuff may well be made into veneer and the factory just sell the lesser wood at a discount to the timber company. The profit from selling the imported walnut as veneer must be huge, even more so if they are used to cover those MDF in the furniture. Few people here in Hong Kong and other parts of China I supposed seems to be interested in selling furniture totally made out of solid wood. People just like the look of wood and thus are not willing to pay more for solid wood furniture. I wouldn't be too surprised to find a piece of a Walnut/cherry veneer-covered furniture here with a price tag comparable with that of furniture made out of solid wood in other parts of the world. People here are made to believe that the price of solid wood furniture is completely out of their reach. If not so, who will buy those relatively overpriced veneer contructed furniture.

As for the forestry in your country, I see your worry. But as long as there are guys like you, Martin and other wood-loving people in US, who love wood as much as we, Chinese love gold:D , situation may not get as worse as you think. Maybe there will be quota to limit the amount of precious wood exported from your country one day.

Talking about the number of short-sighted bussinessmen , we Chinese win for sure:mad: People in your country raise the hens and sell the eggs only. We sell everything , not only the eggs but also the hens . If the price is right, maybe you can also have the house, the wife, the sons and the dogs, who cares how our next generations make a living......I must have gone a little bit too far here:o ........time to take medicine :D

[Martin Shupe]

Thanks for your reply, YW. It is very interesting to hear your opinions.

Hopefully we will all be smart enough in all our countries to grow an ample supply of wood for future generations of woodworkers.

[John Miliunas]

Hey guys, sorry for the "insert" here, but it appears this thread has gone a bit off the the "left". With that in mind, all is not lost with the US forestry industry as long as outfits like this manage to survive: http://www.timbergreenforestry.com/This guy is doing it the RIGHT way!:) (Not affiliated, etc....):cool:

[Tim Morton]

I'm not sure where I heard it, or read it, but it has been on my mind for a couple weeks. It seems that all the "containers" that come over here from the orient "full" of stuff like tools and chinese made clothing, leave to go back filled with out trees. As someone who finds wood to be the most expensive part of this hobby, it gives me concern.:eek: