I've been hoping to build a "real" workbench for a while now to replace my ~25 year old plywood and 2x4s construction which has served me well, but I'm finding too light and shaky as I get more into hand tool work. Honestly though, it's just something I want to do. For plans, I'm using the Wood Whisperer Roubo-style split top workbench (basically two 11" wide 3.5" thick laminated slabs). 

I mentioned I was looking for lumber to a friend and this triggered him thinking about several dead trees he had on his property. He's also a hobbyist and is in the process of finishing his house but has also not done any milling before. He offered me as much of what-we-thought-was-a-hickory tree (more on this ambiguity in a later post) as I wanted if I'd chip in on having a guy come our with a Wood Mizer plus offered to store my wood for "a while" until I figure out where to dry it.

In the following photo, you see "my log." It's a little over 2' in diameter. The tree died last year he thinks and he dropped it recently. My back of the envelope math told me one 8' section should give me 2-3x the wood I needed for the bench. I fell in love with the idea about making a bench starting from a log and getting to take part in the milling (kinda a hobbyist's safari). So I accepted my friends offer and asked for a 8' section. We left the rest of the log intact until a use is found for it. (Discussion on the forum about this...)

Skipping some log logistics (short version: have a neighbor with a tractor), the next image is my log section getting milled (the boards in front came off what is now on the back side of the mill). This was a blast to watch. The hydraulics on the WM (the two doohickeys in the middle between the boards and the log) let the operator rotate the log as well as raise, lower it and brace it, so once the log is rolled on to the machine everything is down by the machine. Very cool engineering.

End view of the mill in action, flattening the second side of the log.

A couple lessons learned during the milling - be prepared by knowing what you want so you can answer questions. The miller and I had a chat before he began and agreed we'd go with plain slabbed boards since I only needed relatively narrow 2x3.5" (for the top and rails) and 2x4" (to laminate for the legs) boards. He offered to do quarter swan but warned it would take a lot longer and I wasn't sure enough of the benefit and didn't want to cut into my friend's milling time - in hindsight I wish I had been more confident on that front. He offered to leave on live edges and I said no. Once he started cutting and got the log squared, he figured out he could do 14" or 11.5" wide boards, and I went with 11.5" since they were lighter and I couldn't see any advantage to having them wider for my use case.

And the result - 11 boards 11.5" wide and 2 1/4" thick. They measure 30% moisture. I figure if all goes perfectly, I will only need four boards for my bench top, one for the legs and one for the rails, so I've got extra (famous last words). Right now the wood is all still sitting as you see it in my friend's shed until I find/make a permanent place for them to dry.

Every now and then I slice some off and make stuff. This seemed like a good source for some end grain material for some trivets. I grabbed a public line drawing for the state of Texas and made a template.

X-Acto knifed out the paper and made a plywood template since we have multiple friends and family in Texas and so needed a template that would last a while. I know from previous experience that if I send one of them something the grapevine will have them clamoring "where's mine!?!". I wanted to stumble through one first to see if it was viable.



I'm sure many of you are familiar with the "washer as an offset or scribing tool" trick. I used a little bit of white pencil here to make it show better.

This just lets me rough cut a lot of the blank away before doing surface prep. No need to waste time preparing areas the will become spoil later on.



I then use the template to draw the lines I will use at the bandsaw.

Ta-da.

Some surface and edge sanding, a little mineral oil and there you go.

Now that I know how I will make a few more for the other folks.

The pine 4x4’s cut to length, design and the ends soaked with epoxy.

Next to prime paint all surfaces. 

I started breaking down the main log by hand, because I detest using the chain saw.

... But that was just silly. I finished slicing it down the middle, then left it to dry for the summer

No photos, but last weekend, Cody and I put some effort into stripping the bark. Enough water has left the wood that we could wrestle a log half into the shop for convenience.

There was a hump on this face from trying to split out the last section, as my saw bar was a bit short. I cross-cut it into sections...

Then knocked those sections out with a chisel.

I cleared about 16" in a 30-minute session this morning. This face should become the seat of the 'park bench', and I will only need to square the opposite face in areas that will join other parts.

Here you can see the wall with the desk, just behind it is the front door.

After visiting a friend a couple of years ago we were struck with some inspiration that we needed to find a way to make this room multi-purpose but weren't quite sure what to do with it until recently. The original idea was to make the whole wall a built-in cabinet with a bench in the middle. Rough plans were drawn, discussions over Ikea "hacks" vs building from scratch happened, etc.

And then I had a different idea. Let's make another kitchen table area where the kids can do homework, play games, draw, read, or whatever that will allow us to not have to clear off the real kitchen table to eat.

Here is the wall now that's opposite the desk.

We found a L-shaped banquette and picked up a used Ikea tulip pedestal table because we weren't sure what size table to get. The top will eventually be replaced with a walnut top finished in Rubio if the bench holds up. The design isn't finalized yet but it will fill the gap between the wall and bench (roughly 64") and should be drawers roughly to countertop height, a small setback and then cabinets with doors on top. We're thinking now that the top will have doors as well. That cabinet might have to be a bit shallower to allow us to hide the air return vent behind it. It will be painted along with the wall next to it in the same color.

I'm always open to suggestions, tips, pitfalls, or any other sort of feedback anyone may have.

First up was to get an idea on dimension's. Using a piece of plywood I started laying things out to get an idea on size and whether or not I would need to alter the plans for my needs. After going through this process I decided to go a couple inches wider and 4" taller then the plans.

Rough idea on the plane till

I think I will center the till and have swing out saw storage (Cosman design) on the right side and hand drills on the left

I will also have drawers on both sides not thinking I will need as much hand plane space as the design has.

The upper portion will house a lot of my chair tools 

And the doors will be home to my chisels, rasps, layout tools, etc

Since I do not have any planes that wont fit in the space above the lower plane storage and the till I am going to make that a bit wider like 3 1/2 - 4" and put a set of tambor doors that will meet in the middle...just becuase I have always wanted to make tambor doors but have never had a project that would look good with them

With the design laid out it was time to pull out the wood. I have a lot of ash so that's what I'm going to use for this project. It's been in the finish room which is why some of it looks gray LOL

I built this for my neighbor. He provided an excellent drawing and did the installation. There are spacers 1/2 X 3/4 X 7" attached to the wine shelves keeping space for each bottle. It was built to match their existing cabinets.

A top view. Both drawers have the X dividers. And a dog at my feet checking me out. 

Nothing fancy. Not furniture. I find building is the elixir that makes me feel better physically and mentally. I cant build if the design is anti ergonomic. A month ago I was asked to build a design that would be a failure. They insisted. I bowed out.

In the beginning my tool kit was ridiculously basic: a Stanley No. 4 with plastic handles and an unbranded No. 5 (it didn’t even have a number on it, but by eye it was a No. 5). From there, I had to learn not only how to use them, but also how to restore and tune old planes just to have any chance of making progress. As soon as I could, I bought a Juuma No. 7 to have a long jointer (though later I managed to get a Stanley No. 8, type 15, which I used to flatten the boards for the benchtop).

The bench itself is a split-top Roubo. I started by gluing up the legs (white oak, 125x125mm, each made from three laminations), squaring them up, then dimensioning the stretchers (red oak, 90x90mm). After that came the real challenge: the top. Seven massive beech planks (thicknessed from 50mm to 44mm), planed and reduced almost entirely by hand, to form the first half of the benchtop (2m long, 300mm wide each half, 100mm thick). Just preparing that first half took me about a month.

Progress has been painfully slow—I’m already around 150 hours in and I’m not even halfway done. But the truth is that this bench has become my crash course in both furniture building and hand tool use. It’s probably the hardest way to learn, but I can’t imagine a better one for truly understanding what hand tools are capable of.

I got a copy if this book (and a new toy), and I had one board of Khaya left over from the previous project just big enough to build this.

Apart from a few small moulding pieces, it is just four frame pieces. The board wasn't quite big enough to cut out the bottom piece full width, so I had to glue up a piece.

I used this online app - http://www.cuttingboarddesigner.com/#/designer/68781c61-c7c5-fac7-8bd3-903a13708a44    to guide me.

I didn't realize how dark the end grain of the maple would get - I was hoping for more contrast.

 Here are some pics, before and after oil. I just use mineral oil for cutting boards.

It calls for a quantity of 2 5/4 10.5" x 93.5" boards. It looks like this is an error. Cany anyone explain?

It starts with a nice piece of acrylic, obtained from @RichardA when he was clearing out his shop. It was the perfect size, at about 9" x 18" or so.

I carefully marked the center, the drilled & milled all the holes and slots, before removing the protective paper. The bit hole is sized and rabbeted to receive a guide bushing, something that my standard Bosch base plates lacked. The holes for the router base mount screws, and for the accessory knobs, are counter-sunk to leave the working surface flush. Drilling was done on the press, to be as accurate as I could make it.

The slots were miled out with a trim router and a straight fence. They receive 1/4" x 20 bolts for attachments, like these guide rails.

Note that I also scribed horizontal and vertical centerlines, as I find these very helpful for straight cut alignment.

The "woodworking" part of this project is the knobs, inspired by the factory knobs from the Bosch router. To begin, I created bolt anchors by drilling some scraps of walnut, and embedding Tee nuts. Then I made bridles in some maple blocks. The anchor pieces were glued in (squared up) later.

I made a pattern that mimics the factory knobs, drawing it on graph paper, and folding down the center to ensure symmetry when I cut it out.

Transferred to card stock to make tracing easier.

Tracing it on two sides, I used the "cut, reassemble, cut again" method to get the beginnings of the knob shape.

I did some 'Diresta-style' bandsaw carving to go from 4 facets to 8. This technique isn't considered safe by some, so I'm not going to demonstrate.

I have no working lathe, so I improvised. A short length of all-thread and a jamb nut serve as an arbor to mount each knob in my drill. Spinning them against the spindle / belt sander gave me a round-ish, smooth-ish surface.

Being an impatient sort, I just used some paste wax as a 'friction polish', and called them good enough. Here is the finished product.

This base is wide enough so that a bushing, or bearing-guided bit can hollow out a fair size bowl or tray. The edge guides do what edge guides do, and having two is great for grooves and mortices. My next add-on will be stand-off "runners" that hold the base at a fixed height above my flat table surface. That will help be mill some end grain "cookies" that are waiting for a good project.

I'm interested to hear of any other add-ons that will work with a base like this.

This is the first time I am trying to building something that I sketched out from nothing and is a little larger in size than I usually build. 

I have been super busy with all of the normal life and work things also going on as usual and progress has been a little slow. I am also making some small test pieces out of some scrap wood I had so that I can test my joint layout and make sure the parts look ok close to scale before I go all in with his lumber.

I wanted to do a project journal but I am a little behind. I have been keeping good notes and taking photos along the way and I am going to try and get this journal caught up to my current progress and finish with the build. 

As a artisan dedicated to archaeological reconstruction, I sometimes face projects that raise more questions than answers. Part of this is because objects nearly two millennia old tend to be found deteriorated and fragmented, but also because academic information is not always as extensive or detailed as I would like. Missing details must be filled in using logic, ingenuity, and information from similar objects. This hammer was found in the wreck of a Roman ship off the Italian coast near Comacchio, dating to the mid-1st century BC, and it probably formed part of the crew’s toolkit or served as part of the cargo.

My hammer has some differences compared to the original, starting with the wood, which is red oak (instead of ash), and the angles of the hammerhead ends, which were originally inverted. The head has a conical hole with four smooth walls; the handle, also conical, fits with small wedges. Except for the mitered ends, all the work was done by hand. Fitting these pieces requires calm and precision; adjusting the central hole was particularly time-consuming and challenging to make it perfectly flat.

The mallet was much simpler. Made from a solid block, the handle and head are one piece. I had to carefully round it by hand, finishing with fine passes of the plane. The handle was shaped on the table saw carriage, rotating it to remove excess material while keeping a solid core.

Both pieces are heading to Ireland for a historical reenactor who will use them in what is essentially experimental archaeology—that is, testing reproductions of period objects to experiment, evaluate, and draw conclusions.

I realized about a week ago that it was a Hallway Table or Sofa Table . . . the names describing the form, not necessarily the placement.  It will go along a wall in the new master bedroom.

I have been getting better about not hurting myself over-lifting.  My son in law dropped by and helped me lift it onto a work surface.  He also helped me put some 8/4 maple up into the overhead rack as the cutting board project I will use that for got bumped by SWMBO . . . she wants the table first. 

You have all seen plenty of live edge videos.  I will knock the bulk of the bark off with a beater-chisel and a mallet.

Then break out a shave to clean things up.

I'll keep you posted as I move along.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but besides being a hobbyist woodworker I have also worked professionally (understanding “professionally” as a reference to quality, not that I do it full-time) in the archaeological reproduction of ancient objects. My main focus is shields, and my field of specialization is Roman shields and the use of archaeological techniques and natural materials, such as glues and paints. I study every academic and/or specialized publication I can find, including excavation reports, laboratory analyses, archaeological records, etc.

I’m going to focus this post on the earliest stage of the project, since it’s the only one that deals purely with woodworking: the construction of the wooden core and the carving of the central piece, called the spina.

This shield is almost a reproduction of the original find from Fayum, Egypt, dated between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC. The attribution to a Roman context is somewhat debatable, but it seems the most likely. As far as I know, the original shield represents the oldest known find of plywood. It was made of three layers of thin birch veneers (there are no birches in Egypt, so either the shield was imported, or the wood was, or it traveled with the soldier from afar). The central layer is made of strips about 10 cm wide and thicker than the outer ones, arranged vertically, while the outer layers run horizontally and are narrower and thinner, about 25–50 mm. There are no precise measurements of the layers or the total thickness, but I estimate no more than 7 mm, judging from the vague reference in the original 1940 report and what other Roman shield finds show. I therefore think the central layer was 3 mm thick and the outer ones 2 mm. As for the shield’s dimensions, they are 128 × 64 cm, with a depth of one Greek palm (231 mm).

Since this was a commission and my client was concerned about the weight, I made it in Spanish poplar, which saved us just over a kilo compared to birch. To begin, I cut board sections to the required lengths—some 140 cm, others 100 cm—then sawed thin veneers to the needed thickness (10 at 3 mm, about 70 at 2 mm, in a variety of widths). The veneers were incredibly flexible, so to form the core I only had to place them in my press, where the pressure shaped them. To make the work easier, I first glued the central layer flat, edge to edge, to form one large sheet. After that I placed the rest of the veneers on both sides and pressed them carefully. For gluing I used natural casein glue, which can be made from milk or cheese and other ingredients. After two days drying I took it out of the press, having first marked the axes in pencil. Then I cut the outline, the hand hole, and sanded it to remove micro-ridges between the strips. Fortunately, it came out almost perfect.

The spina was made of three sections: two thin side pieces and the umbo, or central boss, which has the hand hole. They are joined with a vertical tongue-and-groove joint, unlike the drawings of historian Peter Connolly, who showed it as horizontal. The existing photographs of the original find indicate that my version was correct. The umbo was nailed on with iron nails (forged from bloomery iron, as in antiquity), while the thin side pieces were fixed with conical wooden pegs (and casein glue).

The wood weight was 3.6 kg: 3 kg for the core and 600 gr for the spina. The finished shield weighed 4.8 kg, very light for its size.

I’ve tried to summarize as much as possible—this is a very broad subject. The photos I’ve attached, with watermark, are the ones I used when posting on my FB page, Ars Scutae. I’ll also leave links for a more detailed explanation in the series of posts I wrote there. Post I, post II, post III. I hope you can read them.

If you have any doubts or questions, feel free to ask.

I am using Cherry for the build.  There will be 5 cases with one drawer in each case.  The cases will be 15 inches wide, 5 inches high and 12 inches deep outside measurement The material will be about 5/8 " thick.  The cases will be stack on top of one another with each one being canted about 10 degrees from the case below creating a helical appearance.  The front edge of the cases will have a 60 degree bevel and the drawer fronts will be bowed.  Because of the helical shape of the cases some of the backsides will be visible so I am going to do a detail (yet to be determined) other then just a flush surface.

There are a number of things I plan on prototyping with poplar before doing the actual task.

First up a mock of of the case design with the drawer front.

I milled everything to a little less the 3/4" and even though it is kiln dried I stickered it for a few days to give it one last chance to go goofy on me. The long pieces on the far left are for the tops and sides because I want the grain to run continuously on the top and sides.  The pieces on the right are for the bottoms and the shorter ones in the center will be the backs.

After this, I milled to the final thickness and glued up the panels.  No pictures of the massive clamp usage.  After things dried, I sand everything to 150.

This is a pretty straightforward shaker table with one drawer. At least it looks straightforward. Time will tell though. 

With my dimensions pretty well finalized, i draw them out in chalk on each board. I don't have the 8/4 for the legs yet. I'll get that this weekend and let it acclimate while i work on everything else. 

For the 2 pieces that will make up the top i flattened 1 face by hand because they're too wide for the jointer. 

My method is pretty simple. 

Start with the convex cupped face up and use a scrub plane across the grain to knock it down. This gives me a chance to use the gap stop in my bench as a planing stop. Note: i try to stay away from the corners at this point. 

Then, winding sticks

And when those are playing nice together, it's time to break out the jointer plane. I have a cheap rockler Jointer, but it gets the job done. All that mass helps. Once those big shavings start flying it is very soothing. I could do that all day.  

I flattened the top face of one side and the bottom face of the other.

Because I'm using the jointer for the edges, and this way any little bit that my jointer fence is off from a perfect 90* will be offset between the two pieces and give a nice tight glue line. 

And that's it for now. 

But later in life looked like this a lot of the time. Z-z-z-z-z-z . . . 

She passed a while back and I have found it hard to 'get around' to making her urn (darned dog).  I am using this journal to help me get through the process.  Those of you who have lost loved animals can relate.

Pardon me reviewing some of the basics but I hope this journal will keep me moving along.  I use witness marks to track the progress of flattening a blank at the jointer.

The board teeter-totters so I use scrap[s of waste to split the difference and allow me to conserve stock.

I have a plastic tube screwed to the jointer where I stash thin cutoffs to use for this purpose.

With the first pass I get a couple of "lands" to use for reference (shown here with the white pencil marks).

Another pass gives me a flat and true face.  I guess it is a good time to remind everyone of the milling acronym FEE . . . Faces, Edges, Ends.

Witness marks can help out on the edges as well.  I thought this edge was done but the pencil marks tell me otherwise.

Once the faces and edges are true we can cross cut to length.

This will be a finger-jointed box that will act as a platform for my step son's existing urn. 

It will make more sense in a few more posts.

I thought I'd start this journal while I'm still finishing up the design phase. The plan is for a cabinet that will hold the machine and various other sewing tools and supplies, that can sit in a corner while not in use ... then be pulled out and opened up to provide a bigger work surface while in use.

Obviously there is a lot of detail not included in these sketches, I'm really concentrating on getting the dimentions right and thinking about joinery. I still haven't figured out how the doors will latch to the top in the open position to stop it shifting while open ... hopefully something will get worked out by the end.

The drawer fronts on the right are mostly just a cosmetic facade to make it look more symmetrical when open, there will be some space behind the upper ones that can somehow get used. The drawers on the left are real.

I wanted to recess the lower drawers, so that some useable shelves could be included in the doors for easy access storage when the cabinet is open (I just sketched in some generic shelves for now). But this really makes the joinery for the case to hold the lower drawers a bit more complicated. Hopefully I can figure out something strong enough.

I'm not quite sure if I've really worked it out properly ... maybe it will become more apparent when thinhgs start to go together.

I haven't bought the lift hardware, or the wood yet ... I'm thinking of using African Mahogany (Khaya), but may go for cherry, depending on what is available. If I make the turned legs, I'll need to be able to get some 12/4.

We'll see how much I can get done in the next two months ...