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Thread: Trying to decide first "real" workbench: Moravian, folding Underhill, or ???

  1. #16
    Thanks for the picture!

    How do you dimension your stock? Do you buy your tops/backs/sides prethicknessed?

    Personally, I'm thinking of building a Nicholson bench using screws and power tools (yes, I'm a weeny). http://kapeldesigns.blogspot.com/201...fast-vice.html

  2. #17
    For thicknessing...

    Mostly anymore - I use my drum sander... It's wonderful...

    But when I need to - I use my #5 set up with a toothed iron followed by my #4 smoother. Right there on the big heavy desk...

    Backs and sides - I resaw much of what I have used recently. I do buy sets, though.. They are not pre-thicknessed to any specific thickness. The Osage Orange set used in the guitar sitting on the bench was bought as a set. Nearly all the top sets come in rough sawn. I have resawn some spruce and cedar for tops - basically a waste of time for me.... You spend a pile of money on spruce billets only to end up with a pile of A grade tops that would sell for about $10 each..

  3. #18
    Osage Orange--so nice! I hope to build with some someday, but it's always sold out as soon as it's there.
    I will likely get most of my stuff as Indian rosewood from my mentor. He prefers to exclusively build with Brazilian Rosewood.

    For spruce, I can highly recommend Old World Tonewoods.

    More and more, I'm trying to pare down on my tooling and woods and just focus on what's important in life...friends, family, and my patients.


    In the unlikely possibility that I go pro as a builder, I'd like to use mostly environmentally friendly woods-- port orford cedar or Alaskan yellow cedar; walnut; maple, and maybe macacauba.

  4. #19
    I went to the ReUSE people in San Leandro.
    The timbers under 4x8" are not worth using there.
    However, they have a bunch of glulam and really huge beams in decent condition for cheap.

    Sadly, I'm not ready to build a Roubo....and the beams are likely lead contaminated.

  5. Hello Matt

    Another vote for the Moravian bench here. As soon as I clear out the rest of my remodeling tools the first woodworking project will be the Moravian bench. I bought the dvd that shows Will Myers building a Moravian in Roy's shop in NC (well worth the $35 cost).

    I have a pile of douglas fir and some oak for the vise, so all I will need to buy is some hardware.

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