Hello All, it’s been a long time!

For those of you who knew I was building this, here it is a year later! I started it just after my daughter was born and did not realize how much my time for woodworking would decrease. Now I have a good reason to escape to the shop more often.

This bench was a lot of fun to build! I researched hundreds of designs for the last few years and then discovered this one. I replicated the design from Lon Schleining and his 2004 book, ”The Workbench: A Complete Guide to Creating Your Perfect Bench”, Taunton Press. Lon was also kind enough to consult with me over e-mail as I moved through construction. It is almost an exact replica except I used some Jatoba inlays for the top and vices and Lon actually took the time to create hand-cut dovetails for the aprons, something I have not perfected yet. I used my Inca-Jig.

What you might find most interesting is that 75% of the wood used was salvaged. I work for a housing program at a local University and we were about to take a load of wood to the dump. The top is an old 2” thick maple food prep table from the dining commons and the base of the bench is old oak butcher block lounge chairs and maple bed rails that were resawn and glued. The base is all solid wood, no hardware, as the plans called for through mortises with wedge reinforcements. The only wood I purchased was for the aprons, front vice and twin screw vice. All vice hardware and bench dogs are from Veritas.

Although it was a long process and sometimes painful, I would not hesitate to build another one! I’ll also look to updating my website soon now that I am getting into the shop more often.

Don’t hesitate to drop me a message if you have any questions!

I just finished this piece for Christina’s birthday (which was last December, oops!). She had a jewelry box that I made her 5 years ago, but due to my poor planning, she grew out of it.

Anyway, I made most of this out of Lyptus, the only exception would be the Curly Maple I used on the inside drawer sides. The main box is mitered but also include spline joinery using Lyptus that was a different shade. You’ll notice the half-blind dovetails on the drawers which I used my table mounted Incra-Jig and the smallest dovetail bit I’ve ever used. I also used brass dowel pins inside the doors to hang necklaces. The finish is simply Formby’s Tung Oil which I thought did a great job.

Why is it that it takes me longer to build a little jewelry box than it does to make a queen sized mission style panel bed? Ah, gotta love it!

Enjoy and let me know if you have any questions!

Branden

Well, she got them, 8’ tall in fact! I enjoyed making these and it gave me an opportunity to break out my new paneling bits. I used Ebony stain on all of the Birch pieces which I actually found disappointing as I could have simply painted them with black enamel. I typically like to see the natural grain at the end of the project (call me a Purist), but these turned out pretty sharp nonetheless.

Last spring I was asked to display some of my pieces in a small local gallery. I was humbled and excited to have been approached as I did not consider myself an “artist” with regard to my woodworking. Regardless, the title was “No Stains were harmed or used” and featured a variety of projects made from several species of domestic and exotic woods. The picture does not do it justice but on the left you will barely see nine boxes (8”x 6” x 8” w/ box joints) and onlookers were quized on whether they could identify the red oak, maple, jatoba, paduak, poplar, bolivian rosewood, purpleheart, yellowheart and zebrawood.

Most new homes in California seem to have these huge media niches in the main living room. Either you need to pay the builder thousands of dollars to upgrade the niche or pay a cabinet maker even more to customize the area. Luckily, being a woodworker, I had few problems designing, building and installing this built-in piece. Made of solid birch and birch plywood, it features full extension drawers, plenty of cabinet/shelf space and overhead lights.