October 10, 20169 yr Popular Post This bench was the culmination of 2 years of search and design combination. The design came from several places among them Shopnotes, Wood and the internet. It took me almost 2 years to find a sawmill with the white oak to do the build. Meanwhile I was accumulating the hardware. The front vise and tail vise came fron Lee Valley. Also bed bolts to connect the frame to ends. The front jaw on the front vise was a glue up of 4 pieces of maple salvaged from a bench in a retail store. This is the leg blanks cut to size and awaiting glue up. This is not the glue up of the legs, but the setup to be glued. I used waxed inserts to hold the slot size placement when doing the glueup. above are the legs ready for cross braces. to the right are the legs dry fitted. Cross braces are rabbited to fit mortise and protrude from the frame to allow chamfering the ends. This is a close up of the bed bolts in action for the top rail. The frame with lower shelf of plywood dropped into a rabbit in the lower frame. This is the glueup for the lower frame. Now time to begin the top with 3 layers of MDF glued and screwed together with careful placement of screws so as not to interfere with dog holes. Banded with white oak and enought space at the top for a layer of masonite so top can be changed if ever needed. Then work on the bottom with ends. The completed bench . Now time for drawers. Drawers have dividers and more enhancements added since the photos were done. The finish is from Mickley on Wood Finishing Forum(glad I printed out lots from the old days) . I will have to look that up in the shop and post later, but the glue easily pops off the finish.
October 10, 20169 yr Gerald, that looks awesome. Is that a hardboard top, and did you use the same finish as on the rest of the bench? The pulls on the drawers are interesting. They look like a bowl turning, then cut in half. How close am I on that? Really impressive.
October 10, 20169 yr Quite an exercise in patience and persistence, but it paid off! Now it's ready for some "battle scars"!! Great job, Gerald! Dave
October 10, 20169 yr Beautiful design & craftsmanship. Love the drawer pulls; really adds character & class. Almost too nice to use. Thanks for sharing with us Gerald.
October 10, 20169 yr Author 13 hours ago, PostalTom said: Gerald, that looks awesome. Is that a hardboard top, and did you use the same finish as on the rest of the bench? The pulls on the drawers are interesting. They look like a bowl turning, then cut in half. How close am I on that? Really impressive. Tom I used the same finish for the whole bench and yes the pulls are basically bowls cut with about an inch of waste in the center strip. The finish was from Steve Mickley. His description was longer than this and if anyone wants the full description (2 pages) I can scan it in. Take an egg size portion of beeswax (about 2 oz) and place in 16 ounces of terpentine till it dissolves . Then 16 ounces of BLO. Mix this and apply liberally to bench surface , let it stand for a while then wipe off any still wet areas. May have to repeat this twice for new surfaces. This can be reapplied as often as you need. I now do it about once every 2 years, but at the beginning every 6 months. When you drip glue on surface let it dry and can almost wipe it off with a rag. Thanks everyone for the comments, the bench is now 10 years old and has some battlescars, but has held up very well, that is whi I wanted white oak.
October 11, 20169 yr I've used that Mickley finish since he first described it, and it is fantastic! So is your bench, that is really nice! BTW, if anyone is interested in that finish, he has the details on his website. The only thing I'll caution is that the turpentine smell reeks for days...I had to air my shop out for 3 days after I first applied it.
October 11, 20169 yr An absolutely Georges bench. It's on my bucket list for sure to build. Gerald thanks for showing the breakdown of the process, that was really valuable.
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