Operation Holtzapffel #10: The top finally comes together!

Nice looking top – what kind of lumber is the top made of?

-- When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

This rocks!. I went back through all of your posts. This thing will turn out really nice in the end. I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one with “odds and ends” that interfere with my shop time.

Keep us posted. I’ll be following.

-- Scott - Chico California http://chicowoodnut.home.comcast.net

It’s maple and walnut; I’ve done a couple of pieces with maple as an accent to walnut and I really like the combo.

-- I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

Damian: the Maple/Walnut combo works really well…. I just made a note for my future bench materials! thanx for sharing, will keep checking your progress on this!

what are you planning to do with bench holes? round type?

-- When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

Yeah, going with the round bench holes and I have the Veritas twin screw vise for the front and the big steel one that Chris Schwarz used in his version for the end.

Thanks Scott, glad you like it :)

-- I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

S-T-A-B-L-I-T-Y. This looks like the Rock of Gibraltar.

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

Really nice work there Damian. Where did you get the circular saw guide that you used as a straight edge? I was thinking I could use a long carpenters level for the same purpose.

-- Chris

Chris, it’s a TruGrip Pro, and I got it a while back from Amazon, not sure they still make them, love mine though.

Hey Doug, yeah it’s gonna be quite the beast :) Need to think real carefully about where to put it because moving it around will be far from trivial :)

-- I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

Nice work Damian.

-- CJIII Future cabinetmaker

I like the maple walnut combo on the top. Great looking top!!

-- Steve-o

looking great! i really like the accent walnut! looks great on the top.

Great combo of walnut and maple. When you talked of the difficulty squaring the sides I thought of the shipbuilders trick when they just placed the two boards to be joined together and sawed through the two touching sides…the sides may not have been planar or even square but they’d mate with each other so the join would be very tight. Then I noticed that you had the walnut accent board and I understood why the shipbuilder’s trick would not work for this application. Great blog!

-- ...it's rennovation time!!!

Sweet Damian! wasn’t expecting the walnut accent … love it. Keep up the fantastic work man!

-- Brian, Folsom, CA http://www.brianfullerdesigns.com

Very nice top Damian! I will stay tuned

-- Martin, Gatineau, Québec

Great looking bench. I’m building one of these as well, but I’m having trouble getting 0 gaps in my laminations. Any tips on how to achieve this? Yours looks like it went pretty well.

-- Mark

It just takes lots and lots of clamps and perfectly flat faces, doesn’t matter if there is a bit of bow to the board because you can clamp that out of it, but make sure both faces are planed parallel to one another. Good luck :)

Also I glued it up one board at a time, I think it’s too hard to do multiples at once.

-- I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

Go Damian go

-- Jim from Heirloom Woodshop Southern Oregon