Hi guys! Sorry I've been away for so long - I explained a little in another thread. Anyway I wanted to share a few pics I took while building my new workbench. The lumber is all maple that I sawed myself from trees that grew on my property. I took this pic Dec 31 - that pile became the top and the legs. I didn't realize at the time, but it all had curly figure. I almost felt bad for using it in my workbench. Almost. My plans - its sort of a cross between Shaker, and modern euro style. The base is enclosed with panels for a (future) drawer box, but I traded the leg vise for a face vise. Drawbored mortise and tenon construction - though I didn't end up pinning the top in place yet because I plan to move it at some point when I build my new shop. But first I had to build these stands so I could pass the 4x6 x6' boards for the top over my jointer: Main section of the top: I made a template for my router to help create the dog holes. But I wasted 95% of the wood with the radial arm and just used the router setup for final cleanup.
Making some of the other parts: I resawed the panels all from a single board so I could make a continuous match. They needed to be tongue and grooved, but I would have messed up the match by milling a tongue on the inside edges. So instead I milled grooves and made splines to connect them. Also made the splines from curly maple, cause why not?
Shawn, Looks good. I will be building my bench in a few months when I retire and have more time. I intend to use laminated veneer lumber (LVL). Just have alot of that stuff left over from jobs and it will be a good way to burn it up. Marty
Thanks Marty. It was a lot of time and work but so worth it. It's a game changer for sure. The kind of thing where you'll wonder how you ever managed to get by without it. Well here's the rest of the pics. The stands are adjustable and they gave me enough support to get the top under the drill press. I decided to use Lie-Nielsen vise hardware, because I liked the all-wooden jaws and I had a bit of wood to show off. But it was probably the most complicated hardware to install by far.
Well done and nice clean work. Any drying issues with the maple with twisting or deep checking? Are you going to put a finish on it? That's great that you are able to mill stock that size. There would be quite some added cost if it had to be purchased from hardwood supplier. That is if they even had that dimension in stock. Probably a custom mill order.
Nope, it actually behaved quite nicely. The only stuff that really moved at all was the panels, and it wasn't very much. And that didn't worry me one bit because I knew they were going to be constrained by joinery on all 4 sides. I applied 2 coats of some "tung oil" which I'm pretty sure was mostly linseed actually. Should have known based on the price. Not that I'm complaining - I like linseed too. I'm pretty confident that being in total control of the milling process from start to finish led to better results in all phases. The 4x6's for the top were all center cut from the same log and I was able to book match them when I assembled it. The only way you're going to be able to do something like that is if you own the logs.
It looks like the Lie-Nielsen vise hardware is working pretty good. The photo with the live edge slab that you are working with the draw knife, that has some holding power doing that. And it doesn't appear that you have the slab supported on the back end. Are you going to add a deadman? Never mind: I see the cleat on the tail vise. NICE ! Marty