I had hernia surgery yesterday, so I am banned from the shop while I recover. I’ll try to post a few outstanding items that I have needed to share while I am laid up. This past 18 months, I have been putting my shop back together after flooding messed everything up. I will get that updated for you as well.

My point is 1). I like being here with you and seeing what is up in your shops, 2). I am going to try to share my activities better in the coming months, 3). Thanks for the past 5 years, 4). Martin and Debbie have given me a great place to hang out.

Hears to the next 5 years.

Here’s my saga. Katie, my daughter, has had us helping get her home ready over Labor Day wekend. Painted the first floor, mater bedroom and bathroom last Sat. Sunday we worked on cleaning, a few minor repairs and setting up the TV. Mon we worked on hooking up the surroung sound, but I left early because my other daughter was headed back to State College. Tues I worked on my clock wedding gift that I’ve blogged about. Tues on the 11:00 news, the Susquehanna River projection was to crest at 24.5 ft which means for Katie, water on the 1st floor. The last flood they had was 24.4 ft and the carpet stayed dry. I didn’t sleep much thinking about what she should do.

Thurs morning texted and talked to her and advised her to stay home from work and prepare for a flood. By noon she called for help. I checked my sump pump before leaving and the well was full. Jiggled the float and the pump kicked on and started working. Took my son & truck and went to help Katie. Went spent several hours moving all the big stuff up to the second floor. I sent my son home. It took him over 2 hrs for a 20 min drive and without local road knowledge abd GPS help he wouldn’t have made it.

Katie and I finished up. We left 2 couches, a corner cupboard and some bins that her inlaws were to pick up on the 1 st floor. She has some dishes and appliances in the upper cabinets, about 4 1/2 ft off the floor. By then many roads between her location and my house were flooded. My wife was stranded at the Hershey Medical Center where she works. My son wasn’t home yet. I called my step Mom and they went to check on my house & sump pump. They found about an inch of water in the finished basement, carpet ruined, and did a great job saving most of the stuff.

I plotted a route in my head for Katie & I to get to Palmyra going the round about way. We passed flooded field about 1/2 mile wide from 10ft wide creeks. The water was at the white striope on the side of the road there. Later we drove through about a foot of fast flowing water and made it. Traffic backed up everywhere. Saw a cop who told us there was no way into our town from Hershey, 5 miles. made the decision to head to a resturant in Hershey for dinner and drinks because we were going to stay with a friend of Katie’s nearby. Decided against driving through about18” of water and found another way that had us drive through 6” of water.

Made it to an open resturant, Fennicci’s. Dinner, drinks. Katie’s upset, crying then laughing hysteriacally. Her first home with her husband is going to seriously fllood. Her fiance is in Buffalo and who knows how he’ll get here. She’s got 70 people comomg to a house she can’t even reach. We went to Rite Aid for toiletries. the cleck ther tells us she live next to our subdivision and she just got to work, the road is open.

Back to the car and an easy drive home. Called my wife, who had decided to drive about 20 miles around to attempt to get home from the north. She couldn’t and had found a hotel room without power. I told her how she could make it and she did. We spent last night carrying stuff out of the basement and trying to safe what could be saved. My wife and son took turns manually starting and stopping the sump pump all night. Katie & I tried to rest.

Today, Thurs., we’ve got the stuff secured. My tool appear safe. Some clamps got wet. Some wood got stained. The clock project looks safe. It was sitting on a high spot on concete covered with carpet. Thank you, Lord. I just installed a new sump pump so we won’t have to manually operate the switch and we’ll all be able to get some sleep. We’ve started tearing up the carpet, only about a 4’ wide strip so far, but we’ve got a plan and everything together & organized.

My neighbors have a 4’ sinkhole opening by their mailbox and it looks like the ground is about to give way and open it up to 20’. We’ll get the basement carpet out of there Fri and start the dehumindifiers drying things out. sat Katie’s bridesmaid & Mom arrive. They have been in the US for awhile but are from Australia. They were going to stay in the basement but now will head to my Dad’s.

If it dries out soon, we’ll start getting ready for a wedding. The dogs get boarded next Wed, tent arrives Thurs, rehearsal Fri abd wedding Sat. No stress here, huh?

After that, my shop is moving to the larger side of the basement. Former shop side will be storage. We’ll leave the wall and ceiling finished but are done with the carpet. I’m going to put down horse stall mats, ala Chris Schwartz. New area will be 13’6” by 25” with an additionnal bump out for the scroll saw and one that the lathe will llok great in. That might be the best news of this mess, other than all are safe, including the fiance who made it to his Dad’s.

Sorry for the typo and grammer mistakes, I’m tired and not proofreading this. Going to have a bourbon, or two, and watch football. Tomoorow is a new day.

I’ve added a support to the dado I cut in the sides. This one is for the dial door. You can see the dado for the mechanism support behind it.
Here’s a head on shot of the mechanism support too.
That all looked fine but I thought that adding a cross piece at the top would be a good idea. It’ll lock everything in place and add some additional strength. So I mortised the vertical supports after clamping them together so I didn’t blow anything out.
Since the sides of this clock slant, a traditional mortise and tenon joint won’t work. There’s no way to get it into the clock carcass. I left the top of the mortise open (is that a bridle joint? I’m not sure) and that way I’ll slip the tenons into position. Everything went well and the supports are glued and locked into place.

Now it’s onto the door. I’ll need a door to hold the copper dial that I had made. I’m using some popping birdseye maple and chopped the mortises.
Then it’s time to cut and fit the tenons.
Now it’s nerve wracking time! I’ve got to cut that expensive, fancy, impossible to replace, hand hammered copper dial. I used a marking guage and triple checked my calculations as to how much need removed. Tin snips did the work and it was fine. Whew!
A dry fit, then some glue and clamps, here it is.
That went well. Now I got my hardware organized. That door will need hinges and a pull. The pull needed a stepped hole. This is the first set of hinges that I’ve installed.
I did most of the work with a chisel but got my little router plane into the game for the final finish. This was the first time it saw action and she did a great job. Here’s a look at what I’ve done. The clock is upright and the dial door is in place.
I laid it back down on the bench and put the mechanism in place. As you can see, I’ve got to get the optimal postion for the center and the three winding posts. A bit of fussing and I’m happy with it.
I made riser block that I could screw to the shelf and put the chimes in the right position. I had a lot of taking the mechanism in and out so there’s a clamp holding one corner while I adjust things.
Since #4, 1/2” screws hold the mechanism in place, I used an eggbeater drill to make some pilot holes.
Here we are, chimes in place, mechanism screwed in place, ready for a test run.
Here’s look at what I’ve done! It’s a clock!
Just as a reminder, this is my goal. A clock from the Grove Park Inn except I am using cherry and birdseye maple.

I think I am doing well. It looks great, sounds great and the bride to be seems excited about it. The groom is sitting for the bar and hasn’t seen it lately. I am cautiously optimistic that I’ll have it done by the wedding, now 7 weeks, 4 days away. We’re heading out to the beach so progress will be halted for the next week or two.

I need to make the upper door (mitered, splined and with a round, centered window) and the lower door. Plus I want to go over the finish and clean up any imperfections (and gouges, like the one the bride helped put in it while we were moving it). All things considered, I’ll be able to relax on the beach, enjoy my adult beverages and not stress over my clock project. Thanks for following, one more entry and this will be done!

Here’s two final pictures of my progress, enjoy.

I think I am going to go the router path. Here’s what I decided, first, I wanted to locate the top and bottom shelves from the rails on the front. I just lined it all up and made a mark.
I had kept the back of both sides straight so that I could reference off of it to this mark. That let me scribe a line across the side at the proposed top of the shelf. Then, with Father’s Day coming up, I requested a new tool. I figured a trim router would be better for this job. Plus Fine Woodworking had just published a review of trim routers. Lucky me, I got a DeWalt 661 trim router package for Father’s Day. So I made a little jig that shows right where the bit will cut, nothing hard, just a fence glued to a piece of plywood that I then routed away the excess leaving me what the bit will leave. Let’s make those dados!
This was the most nerve wracking thing, I had put a ton of work into getting these sides to look good and I did not want any screw ups at this stage. So guess what happened? When I was routing the grooves that will hold the clock’s mechanism, I had clamped my jig partially off the the side…it moved. Here’s what I did to fix that and a view of the dados.
If you look closely, you’ll see the left side has a groove that is wider than the others. I made a plug to go into that groove and rerouted, a little less deep. Plus the second dado down on the left has little “wander” where I didn’t hold to the jig well enough. It’s the underside of a shelf and I can’t think of how that can be fixed, so it’ll stay. If somebody sees it, I’ll yell at them “Get your head out of that clock!!”

I don’t need that square reference surface on the back of the sides anymore. Off to the bandsaw to cut that to its intended slant.
I cleaned those sides up while clamped together with my handplanes. Now they are both the same shape. After much thought, I realized that the easiest thing would be to set up a bevel square with the angle I needed the dados to be and chisel the bottom edge to that angle. Plus, I could then trim that as needed with a block plane to get each shelf married to its dado. Here we go.

That went great. I was a little surprised but pleased. I just worked my way through them, pausing every once in a while to look at them standing there. As you can see, they are not cut to width yet.
Then I wanted to remove the finish from my upcoming joint for the glue and create a rabbet for the side to register into. I used a skew block plane with the fence set the width of the side. The front and back got rabbets on their insides.
Now I actually need to glue this thing together. A drop of Titebond III in each shelf’s dado at the front, place the selves in, run hide glue down the rabbet (I didn’t have total confidence in the glue up being right so the reversibility of hide glue appealed to me and I wanted the quick tack that hide glue gives you) and place the side onto the front, clamp and wait. Here’s one side in the clamps.
No problems, my glue team came together for me. We glued the sides to the front, no problem. I wanted to add some corner blocks at the legs for extra strength. I used a chisel to peal away the finish, and glued some blocks in there.
Next, I layed the clock body onto the back and scribed a line where the rabbet needed adjusted. I increased the depth of the rabbet and made it to fit the width that the clock body now required. Once that fit well dry, I assembled my team and we glued. Hide glue on the rabbets with the body then lifted into place and apply clamps (FYI, got some new clamps out of this project, too). I had left the sides inset a bit so they could be trimmed flush. Who’s best for that job? I think it’s the block plane to start and the Low Angle #4 to finish. Here’s some plane pictures.

After that, it’s time to stand up and start looking like a clock.



Looks good, huh? Within 3 minutes of setting it upright for the first time, my daughter’s cat climbed onto one of the shelves and laid down like it was made for her. I’ve got BLO on the sides in these pics but will be putting shellac onto them tommorow. Once that’s all satisfactory, it’s onto the “guts” of the clock. It is now 10 weeks and 5 days until the wedding. I think I’ll lose 2 weeks of work on this project for vacation and the week of wedding prep. Still seems tight on whether it’ll be done. At least it’s upright. Thanks for following.

I drilled the holes for the bottom profiles, no issues with that since they were full holes and no short grain to deal with.
Then I got down my “cute little bowsaw” as the bride to be a calls it, and cut out the waste.
A little rasp work and I had the side ready. This picture is of the side with BLO on both sides, that’s why I confessed earlier.
There they are, vertical, in front of their mates.
Then I thought I’d get the shelves ready. I think I already showed you their glue ups. I finish sanded them and lined them up for some BLO.
I also did the pieces that will form the frame around the dial. These are my best looking pieces of birdseye, I can’t believe the figure in them.
Don’t they look amazing with the BLO bringing the eyes to life?
Here I am wiping down the BLO on one of the shelves. I just love to see the wood start to come together.
Alright, that’s where I am as of tonight. When I was inspecting the finish, I discovered that I have a few tracks from by Dad’s thichness sander that remain in the birdseye dial frame pieces. Bummer. I am going to have to go back and resand the dial frame. I was working ahead on those so it shouldn’t be an issue. I am ready to put the shelf dados in the sides. That will be the next installment. Thanks for following along with me. It’s 13 weeks and 2 days until the wedding.

That’s where I am now. As a reminder, this is my goal – except in cherry.

Let’s keep going, the wedding is 16 weeks and 2 days.

I think that when I set up the bit, I moved the bit into the wood so the center spur would track better than it did on my back frame. That put too much pressure on the wood as the bit exited the wood and was cutting the end grain with virtually no back up strength. I have to make a new rail.
I jointed a new piece of wood flat, ran it through he planer to get it to thickness. It’s a pretty good match as far as the other rails go, not as good as my broken one that I cut from the same board. I’ll have to live with it. Plus I am going to profile the bottom of this one before I cut it to length and put the tenons on it. Here’s new clamping set up to drill the hole.
Let’s hope this works.
It started making noise as the spur exited the rail so I stopped drilling. I’m going to drill the other side now.
Now I flipped the rail over and started drilling from the other side.
I chickened out and stopped drilling once I had cut a small profile in the backside. I am going to clean this up with my cute little bow saw.
That’s better. Now I’ll use a chisel and some rasps to finish this up. Then it is over to the bandsaw to remove the center section, then the table saw to cut this to length.
A bit of careful layout and measurement, and I removed most of the waste from the tenons at the table saw. Here’s where I am at now.
I now need to clean up the tenons and fit them to the mortises. No more predictions on when I’ll be done, no more over confidence causing bad mojo. Let’s hope this is the worst problem I have to deal with. Next post, I hope, will show the front assembled. Thanks for following along.

Alright, this shelf looks good. Please note that I have learned my lesson and that triangle is correct on this one.
You know the glue and clamps are next.

Here is my walk of shame. I’ve cut that back panel apart and re – jointed the edge. Since I hand plane my surfaces, I check the grain direction and glue up panels with the face grain all running the same direction whenever possible. It makes things go easier later on.
Here I am completing the correction of my mistake. I wish you guys would have said someting when you saw me glueing it up wrong, come on, help a fellow out! That triangle is in place now.
Since you’ve stuck with me so far, I thought you deserved a little woodworkers porn. Here are the planes I’m using for edge jointing, a Lie Nielsen #7, #5 and Low Angle #5 or #62. And some shavings they made.
Back to business. I’ve glued up the 8 panels I need so far. I have 2 sides that I’ll glue up later but since it’ll be awhile until I need them, They will wait until then. Here the panels are, all stacked nice neat by the router table.
Now I will start to flatten one side of each of those panels. This one will be the top of the clock. I use a scrub plane to hog off most of the waste before switching up to the #5. First I scrub plane down a bit and check where I am on the path to flat with the winding sticks. If you haven’t done this before, you lay two flat straight edges at opposite ends of a board and site across the surface. Any twist shows up easily and then you can remove material from the offending corners until you get to flat. Here’s a glance at this, but this panel is close already.
Then by planing diagonially, I keep taking material off. The lumber crayon or pencil lines tell me where I have yet to plane.
Then I switch diagonials and plane some more.
Now you can see I am down to where there is almost no “valley” running down the middle of this panel.
Let’s check to make sure there is no wind in this one.
I then plane a bit with the #5 to give a smoother surface but I don’t have any pictures of that, you’ll have to imagine those pretty curly shavings coming out of the plane. Look back at the previous pictures if you need to. Since I know you are checking out all the stuff in the backgroud, those cherry boards stacked over that left edge of the sticks are the sides awaiting their turn.

That’s where I am at as of now. There are 21 weeks until the wedding and still alot to do on this clock. Next up will be the apprentice I will bring in to help out some. Thanks for following along.

I have to start milling my stock. Here’s the stile and rails for the front and back of the clock.
The sides are solid pieces that I’ll glue up later from 2 boards. For now, I’ve got work to do.
I’m starting on a rail to get warmed up.
Here I am checking to see where I am off.
Now I’ll get it flat on one side.
Next up is flattening one side of the stiles. Here is a progress shot.
Confession time … I use a planer to bring the other side into flat and then skim the original hand planed side to take some off both sides to keep anything from twisting. Boy was my son pleased to get his picture taken for this blog … NOT!
Here they are all lined up, looking pretty.
I will hand plane each surface again, later, after the joinery. Then you and I will be only ones who know I used some electricity. I think of that planer as my 18th century apprentice who works hard for little pay.

That’s all for this time, thanks for following.

My eldest daughter is getting married! They got engaged Summer, 2010 and the wedding is planned for Sept. 17, 2011. I told them I’d like to make them something special as a wedding from my wife and me. This is what we all agreed would be a great gift.

Never mind that I haven’t done anything in Arts & Crafts Style and that this is my reference, Bruce Johnson’s book on The Grove Park Inn’s furniture. I’m going to build it in Cherry (that’s what she wants, and after making that bed for my son out of tiger maple, cherry sounds great). First up is to study the plans. I had some blank spots and some questions so I sent an email to Bob Lang, Popular Woodworking’s expert on Arts & Crafts furniture. Within 12 hours, he answered my questions and had me on the right track! Here’s the details I worked out.
Next, I wrote up a procedure list. I find that this really helps to mentally build a big project first.
Next, I acquired the necessary parts like a hand hammered dial, the mechanism and the hardware I planned on using.

That’s my cherry in the background. Now that I have my plan, next up is the woodworking part of this project! Thanks for following along with me.

If cracks occur, they are repaired with thin CA glue and C-clamps. In the past few weeks, I’ve done five c-arms and four have needed repairs. These failures are common with this type of chair due to the extreme bend.

Next I went work on the leg vise. I forgot to take a picture of what I started with but you’ll get to see the offcut in a minute. Here I am using a taper jig to make a cut on the table saw. I took the offcut from here and glued them onto the top so that I would have more width at the top of the vise jaws.

Then I cut a mortise in the bottom of the jaws for the parrallel guide that I had previously made.

Here’s what it took to get this job done. This is my first hand chopped mortise with these chisels and I was very pleased with how easy they made the task.

I wanted to glue and pin this is place and my daughter loved making the dowels for it, or more accurately banging a piece of wood through the dowel plate was a blast for her.

A little trimming of the pins and I think this might be ready.

Yep, it’s ready.

Here’s the offcut of the 6’ ash log that I started with standing next to the leg vise. I scrub planed it, then used a #5 to flaten one side, then ran it throught he planer. I am going to use the offcut to make my sliding deadman. This is from a tree my Dad cut down for me and we’ve air dried for 2 years. The original plan was to use it to make a shaving horse but I ended up deciding that this would be more useful for the type of work I do.

A couple of comments about the leg vise. If I was doing it all over, I’d have the bottom of the vise be a full inch above the floor. It tends to get hung up on my mat but I’ll change that situation soon to correct this problem. I also went with a tight fit of the screw in the jaw face thinking that this would provide more support and be better. I had to go back and rasp out the hole some because the screw was too hard to turn. I thought it would work its way looser and be ok, but I couldn’t wait for that and just opened it up a smidge. I made three handles from some ash scrap from the same tree the jaws came from…and am still not happy with any of them. So I put one of them on and decided that I’ll rive a piece of oak from a windsor chair making log that I’m going to buy in a few months. Just a planned improvement and a minor thing to do later.

I bought a piece if leather to line the leg vise with and decided on contact cement and the best way to attach the leather. Here we are ready to put them together. You can see some holes the bugs ate into the log, it’s a workbench is my attitude. I want to use it to make high quality pieces, not make a muesum quality workbench. All of the bench below the top is from free wood my Dad gave me…too bad he didn’t have some hard maple I could have used for the top, huh?

No better way to clamp the leather in place then to use the vise itself. I think this picture also shows the struggle I’m having closing the screw, hence loosening the hole some was required.

I had 2 “made in tiawan” hodfasts that really didn’t hold anything very fast. I looked on the internet, what an amazing thing, and found a blacksmith about a hour away from me. He had some old reference books from the blacksmith end of things and agreed to make 4 holdfasts for me. Here I am glueing leather pads onto them.

Here’s the four holdfasts lined up. Let me tell you, he did a great job. One wack and these babies hold! I used them to hold something I was crosscutting, the wood didn’t move. It was like a light bulb went on above my head…”So this is how this is supposed to work!”

I think that’s it for now. This is almost done. My to-do list only includes making the sliding deadman and its guide, adding cleats and a shelf on the strechers, and maybe adding a planning stop. That will be the next and final blog before this becomes a completed project.

I carefully took the oak down to 5/16” thick since that was the size of holes I chose to drill to hold this all together.

At first, I made the pegs square and cut them to length. Then I wised up and realized that if I carefully split that baby, I could save myself some effort and get 2 sets of pegs from one piece of oak, duh!

Working on the short strechers first, I glued the tenon (Notice the artistic camera angle my daughter came up with).

A little glue into the mortise, and I slid this one into place.

Then all I needed to do was pound the peg home. The ones on the short strechers went together great.

A quick trim with the saw,

and then a carving gouge.

I had this one done in no time at all.

The long strechers required moving the assembly process to the floor. Here I am slipping the strecher into place, of course both strechers had to be done at the same time.

They fit good and I was ready to move on.

The top end of the long mortises needs glue and then I put the other short strecher assembly on top.

Then I turned this thing onto its side to drive the pegs in.

Notice the amazing camera work as my assistant captures the exact moment the hammer hits the pegs. I did have to sort through a few shots but she got the exact one we were after without slowing me down.

I continued with the trimming as before.

I did have a peg break on these long strechers but it was not noticable in the finished look. I guesss some of the integrity is comprimised but I don’t see how it will affect the final function of the bench since I did glue the joint and one peg is going to hold that joint together.

After the base was assembled, one daughter helped lift it onto the bench top while the other daughter took the photos. Who got the better end of that deal? When is their brother getting home from college?

I checked the fit of the legs into the bench top.

One leg needs its tenon trimmed.

I hate to admit it, but this is because I have a strecher joint that did not close all the way. I have concluded that I had a bit of racking and that the base in not dead square. Unfortunately its too late. These timbers are massive. The base wieghs 110 lbs. It’s tough to move and test fit. It’s a learning process. Those are my excuses but I am sure I could come up with more if I have to.

Here’s the base waiting to flipped into place now that I have the shop cleaned, a little. If you click on the picture and go to photo bucket, you can see its predicessor siting off to the right in the full photo. The plan is to place the base, slid the top onto the old bench, lift and flip the top, place the top on the base,

Amazing, it actually work as planned! Here it is in place.

All I need to do is peg the top to the bottom, no glue in case I ever want/need to move the bench. If that happens, I’ll drill the pegs out and have my son and and his strongest friend lift it off and put it where it needs to be. I did use my drawbore tool on the pegs but it didn’t help. I still had several pegs break. Either I had the pegs a bit too thick or I offset the holes in the tenons too much. Either way, I can’t lift the top off the base at any leg and they all went in far enough that all you see is a square peg.

Next up, I sweat my a** off again as I work on flatenning the top. This side needs to be dead flat and smooth. Plus it matters so no more mistakes, right?

I wanted to get my strecher length right on, so I took my measurement right off the legs.

I layed out my tenon shoulders and got out my tenon saw to cut them.

Sorry I got all interested in fitting all those tenons and didn’t get any pictures of the process. I did get some shop help though and I put my daughter to work champferring the bottoms of the legs. The theory is that there won’t be any chips on one side of the legs when you move it. I had to see how much this thing is going to weigh so I brought the bathroom scale down and weighed the parts. The base is 110 lbs. and the top is too heavy to fit on the scale at this point. I don’t think it’ll move but had the helper use a chisel

and then a plane to put a 45 degree edge on the bottom of the legs.

Next up was to rout the groove for the deadman in the underside of the bench. I made several passes.

Gradully lowering the bit until I had a 3/4” wide groove that’s 1 1/8” deep. I think that will be fine for the deadman to fit into securely.

When I was done, I squared up the corners. I thought about leaving them alone, but I like square corners.

I figured since the base wasn’t assembled yet, I should put the flange for the leg vise on now while it could lay flat, saving me from crawling under the bench to install it later.

Now it’s time to drill some holes. I plan on pegging/drawboring this all together so layed out my locations and drilled my holes with a backer board to prevent blow out on the inside of my mortises. The small square in my hand is helping me drill straight in the vertical axis, I can see the bit fine to keep the horizontal axis square.

Then I finished the holes on the other side of the mortise.

Then I slipped the tenon piece, in the picture it’s the leg, into place and marked the hole center with the tip of the bit.

Next is to slightly offset the tenon hole TOWARDS the shoulder (I was worried that I ‘d go the wrong way so I kept yelling this to myself, thankfully no problems).

Just drill a straight hole and I’ve got it licked.

You know the saying about round holes and square pegs, and I’ve driven square pegs into round holes before (FYI the square edges just cut the surface and you end up with a square looking peg) but I wanted to give the pegs a little help.

Well that’s alot of work for me to get done. Cutting and fitting 8 tenons and getting all the little things ready so I can assemble the base. I think this bench is about to make a whole lot of progress. I have it in my head that I should be able to use it in two weeks. We’ll see if that’s true.

I glued them up and dressed them up until they came in at a finished dimension of 3 5/8” by 4 5/8”. They are beefy but I want this to be a sturdy bench that’s not going to move and has enough size for whatever project I want to tackle. The top is 23 5/8” wide and looks to finsh up about 9’ 2” long. I settled on 1 1/2” by 3” tenon size and layed them out.

Then I made a simple jig that I could clamp to the bench and rout the tenons. I must confess that I did want to chop these out by hand, but after I had chopped one tenon to a depth of 1/4”, I wised up and went to the router.

It took a few passes and the bit a little bit of flare on it that caused some burning on the last pass, but I got to the 2” depth I wanted. Next I cleaned up the corners with my chisels and here is a finished mortise.

You know what needs done now, make the tenon. I chose to cut them by hand.

They didn’t take long before the legs looked like this.

Here is a test fit, we’re getting close on this one.

My oldest daughter wanted to give me some help so I put her to work undercutting the shoulders. She likes using the chisels and carving.

After all of that, here’s a leg fitted into its mortise.

Once that leg was in place, I had to get three more to fit into their mortises. Here’s the proud lumberjock with his legs in place.

My helper wanted to keep working, so we decided to make the parallel guide that will fit onto the bottom of the leg vise. This is simple piece of wood with equally spaced holes so first I layed them out.

Then I had them drilled while I took a break, had a soda…

A little dressing up for looks, cut a slot in the leg and here is the result of our efforts.

Next up is to mortise and tenon the strechers in place. Thanks for checking out my progress. I’d be interested to hear if this is too many pictures.

Next I used my #5 jack plane with a blade that has a bit if crown on it to get things flat. As I worked, I checked my progress across each side and for wind and marked the areas that still needed work with a lumber crayon Here’s the tool and its results.

As I got near the end of the sweat that this job requires, I checked for wind. The poster board on the other end makes it easier to see all of the winding sticks. I’m real pleased with the results but don’t know if this photo really lets you see all three spots in the proper focus. You’ll have to trust me that they are dead on flat across the three of them.

DONE! Here’s picture of the finished underside if the bench. What a relief that’s done but the bad news … I’ll have to the entire thing again when I flip it over. Fortunately, that is going to be after the base is built and the top and base are joined together.

I am happy with it. By the way, I can count. I just decided before gluing the last few boards together that board 10 wasn’t as pretty as board 8 and they got switched.

Next up, milling the pieces for the base and laying out the mortises.

My work includes windsor chairmaking so I wanted a Record style vise placed in the end vise postion. I have used this style vise in this location at Mike Dunbar’s school and really liked them. I do a lot of hand planing so I wanted a heavy top that won’t move. I went with hard maple, thinking that maybe if I dropped the bucks now I’d be satisfied and never build another bench (definitly no need for a new top though). A problem with my current bench is that the legs are too close together, especially on the short side, so heavy planing makes it unstable. I haven’t been able to redo the base because when I glued up the current bench, I got lazy and left some of the boards thicker preventing widening the base since its held together with short strechers at the top. Plus I figured if I was going to tear apart and redo the current base, I might as well expand the top too. I also do some handcut dovetail work and felt that a leg vise would work great for dovetailing. If I want to add a twin screw vise later for this work, I plan on putting it on the opposite side of the leg vise, maybe in the middle of the bench or towards the end vise.

My biggest excuse, no scratch that… My biggest need for a new bench is that I committed to making a pencil post bed for my son. Those posts are 7’ long and my current bench is only 6’ long. I felt I might have difficulty working around this issue.

I bought some 10’ long, 12/4 hard maple and some 10’ long 8/4 hard maple for the top. The idea of hand planing all of those flat for glue up didn’t appeal to me, so I found a local cabinet shop that used their surface sander to joint and square up three sides for me. Well worth the $100. Here the boards are coming home.

I did a bit of touch up jointing with a hand plane before proceeding. With one of my able shop assistants, I started the glue up, putting just a few boards together at time and then continually adding to them until there were all glued up.

Here we are about mid-way thru the process.

Eventually we got them all glued up.

Next up, I flatten what will be the underside of the top when the bench is finished.