B. Brinkley

Coop I have not really used much in the way of hardwoods lately. I have a big pile of 200 year old heart pine that I am working off of at the moment. It's hard as nails and very tight grained. Came from a very old dairy barn locally. I am blessed to have acreage so I can cut my own oak etc. I plan on making some furniture for our home from the pine as it matches our old German style of house here on our ranch.

I am near Huntsville, TX. Houston is swallowing us up unfortunately.

One trick we boat builder's use is to place a small chunk of end grain is a small saucer of rubbing alcohol. If it is Red oak it will immediately suck up the alcohol through the grain and by capillary action seep out the topside of the piece. White oak is much more tight and will not do that so readily. Try it, it's kinda fun to watch./

Mark I built a Bowers Flybaby many years ago. I have very few photos and none digitized. I loved that plane and wished I still had it. I doubt if I would fit in it nowadays as my girth and weight has increased somewhat!

Mat the router table is built into my 4x8 Paulk assembly table. It has dog holes in it to clamp stuff like face frames for cabinets etc. It's a torsion box design and he did a nice job of designing it for what it is used for. There is way to much resonant bounce though for chisel work though. I do the hand tool work on my main bench which has nearly zero bounce. My main bench top is two layers of 3/4 MDF laminated together and then another piece of 1/2" birch ply is used for the top surface for a total thickness of 2". I have oak trim strips around the edges of the plywood for edge protection. The plywood is screwed down with #10 x 1 1/4" silicon bronze flathead screws around the perimeter so that it can be easily replaced. I use my benches hard so when it gets ratty over time I can just pop in a new sheet when needed. It has a workman type of finish using BLO and beeswax for stain protection. (mostly anyway )

Richard I have used it today to file a few saws. The vise is moveable up and down in the Moxon style vise to whatever height I need. So far I have not found any noticeable vibration while filing. I made it tall enough to stand while I am working on the saws.

Since my retirement, I have been spending more time in my shop this year. Here are some photos of my shop and bench. "Benchzilla" has given me about 10 years of faithful service so far. I built it using M&T frames and raised panel construction and it weighs about 300lbs. It is just over 4x8 ft. as I also use it as an out-feed table. It has it's own electrical circuit and a dedicated panel with hidden outlets under the ledges. It also has a small built-in air compressor to run my brad guns. Still, I am gradually gravitating back towards an emphasis on hand tools. I have built boats and airplanes in here as well as some furniture of which I still have much to learn.

Hello all. First post here although I have been lurking for some time. This morning I built a saw vise out of some pine I had laying around. It works nicely.