Is it a vice to want a nice vise?

[BigC]

What more can one say,
I live in awe.
Such beautiful workmanship
Thanks for bringing his to fruition
Regards
C

[scottp55]

Thanks Bill:)
The guy with the pick-up has a good eye for wood(AND you for picking those pieces:)
Love that black streak, as some of my Maple blowdown has similar, and really like how the figure shows through depending on viewing angle!
Like how you shaped the top of that in attempt to save your knuckles

Glad you chose oil so very easy to touch up knicks/dings....Yep...a light scrape will do wonders on the old growth legs.
I'm still in awe of the difference between old growth, and the replacement GMO leg in the density of growth rings!!
Your pics made me aware of it, and still think of it...maybe show those pics for the Wood Ticks like me?

Uncaffeinated, but just smiled at the thought that you ought to string up halogen track lights to pinpoint the fancy wood like in a Gallery...
AND to bring out the grain of your projects when they're clamped
(I have to turn off my LED and rely on the halogens to see figure correctly when facing or cutting 3D firewood)

Is next job your Gramp's Masters toolbox replica?
scott

[BillK]

This is what Scott mentioned. These are all 2x10, the grooved ones from my uncle’s bench that I cut down for the legs of my new bench. The one on the left recently purchased from HD. The right ones are at least 70 years old. You can probably fit 3-4 years of growth rings from the old between the Genetically Modified rings of the new. Will new homes built today last as long as those from 70 years ago? Time will tell us.

[BillK]

“I built it one piece at a time” -Johnny Cash

Sometime in 2018 I was offered a 1 3/4” thick, 36” by 6’ long used maple work bench top. It had scratches and dings in it but looked pretty flat so I agreed to take it home. Two strong guys walked it out of the building to put it my truck. It was heavy, and being not that far removed from hernia surgery I wondered if I made a huge mistake. Well, I got it home, and walked it slowly from my truck bed to a wall in my garage where it stood up for months. Every day I looked at it and thought how was I going to move that thing down to my shop in the basement?

Finally end of October 2018, I put up a couple of saw horses, got out my Dad’s ‘60’s-‘70’s vintage black and decker circular saw with a new diablo blade and a really straight board and ripped a piece from each side to get it down to 24” wide. Took those two smaller parts down stairs and wrestled the big part back up against the wall.

Spring 2019 came and I strapped the big part to a garden cart, put two ramps down the steps to the basement and slowly slid it down. I put it on two saw horses and started working on it, literally, using the top for making other projects on as it was heavy enough to be pretty stable clamped to saw horses. Intermittently I tried planing off the old finish which was very tough, creating tearout. I ended up buying a cabinet scraper and that was a godsend as I scraped the top down. I laminated the rails I had cut off to the bottom, creating a 3 1/2” thick top on both sides. I cut down both ends with a circular saw, router, chisels, and router plane to make the breadboard ends adding the walnut accent pieces.

The rest is well documented in the rest of this post. Today I put the second coat of Tried and True Danish oil on the whole bench. I wheeled it into my basement rec room to take “Glam shots”. I never did get any help moving this, but figured out how to wheel it around and flip it over, etc. Now its done. I’ve been using it and It’s great. If it look disproportionately high to you its 40” tall as I am 6’5” tall. Overall its 24” x 73 1/2 by 40” tall. I might add a deadman to the front if I need to, but not right now.

Oh, you might notice my little bench top bench in a few of the pictures to follow. Love that also built within the last two years. The front is a Moxon vise which is great for cutting dovetails on. That was done almost all by hand, lambs tongue and all. The turning wheels for the screws were done with Aspire, and the little walnut covers on the sides also.

I’m grateful to have been given most of this wood and to have saved it for this project.

Thanks for looking!

[BillK]

Some more shots.

[BillK]

That’s all folks! Thanks again.

[scottp55]

Thanks for that Wood shot Bill.....I wonder which wood engineers use when computing wood trusses...GLAD I told mine to double the snow load Code!

What a wonderful job and documentation you did on this project!
The Aspire and CNC "Touches" as well as the wood choices and the fact a lot was repurposed makes it Really special!
Beautiful job, Well done:)

LIKE the "Glam" shots
Great Craftsmanship Bill, for both you and future generations!
scott

[BillK]

Thanks Scott and everyone for your comments and encouragement. If not for your feedback keeping me going, that top would still be on the saw horses. I just want to let everyone know it just takes time and patience and encouragement. A lot of things on this bench project I had never done before. Read, watch videos, look at other projects and with a few inexpensive tools you can do a lot.

[BillK]

So after finishing the last of this year’s Christmas projects, I thought it was a great time to clean off the bench top, run a plane over for flatness, and re-oil as a yearly maintenance.

Got a few more scratches in the top, but otherwise still solid as a rock. Carvings all still look great. Very happy I built this, it really a necessity with any handtool work.

Already for January projects.

[scottp55]

STILL looks Elegant Bill!!
On of the nicer points of an oil finish....dings/scratches/scrapes are SO easy to repair!
NICE to be at the "....Once a Year..." stage!!

Make a cantilevered wheelchair suitable one....and I'll take it off your hands!
scott

[BillK]

Saw several nice designs for a wheelchair workbench, pick one out and send some wood, lol.

[TReischl]

Thanks for sharing all the pics Bill.

A good workbench is special, no doubt about it.

I built mine 21 years ago come January. Talk about luck! The place I worked had a small electronics division that was moving out. They had two real butchers tables, complete with scrap holes. As they were being wheeled down the haul I asked where they were going with them. The trash! I got one, a friend got the other. 8 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 3.5 inches thick. On the bottom was a stamp indicating they had been glued up in 1979 at a company in Michigan. Took me a while to plan the bench out. The top is now 79 inches long, 38 inches wide. I added a tool tray (which is useless btw so I put some "deck plates" over it), a wagon style vise and a face vise. All of those out of seriously large pieces of hard maple. I opted for square dog holes and just recently finished milling up aluminum step dogs with springs for every hole in the top.

I am not a fussy kinda guy but I am more or less careful with my bench. I like shellac for a coating, it is fairly hard and is easy to redo now and then. It is too slick for some wood workers though. There have been a few additions over the years. A few years ago I added two threaded brass inserts to the front apron so I could mount the carving vise at a convenient height. Also faced the wagon vise with 1/4 inch thick aluminum angle. About ten years ago I discovered that putting leather on one face of the front vise really increases holding power. BTW, I made the vises, screws, nuts, garters, the whole works. And that was before I had a cnc machine with a rotary axis. Sheesh, it would have been a lot easier now. . . .

Just finished helping a local friend build his bench. He opted for southern yellow pine due to costs. Around here SYP is actually pretty darn nice. Search around a bit and 2X12's can be found with no knots at all. Another good thing about it is that is downright heavy and is pretty hard. His top is 4.5 inches thick.

Well, nuff blathering. . .thanks again for sharing.

[BillK]

Thanks Ted. Yes it takes luck and a good vision of what you can do with something that’s headed to the trash. I almost passed on this top the first time, thinking I didn’t really need that type of bench. But I got more into using hand tools and saw how useful a solid bench would be and went back to find the top still there.

Right behind my workbench I have my tool bench and storage, so I passed on adding a tray. I still might add a sliding deadman as I can see I’d have some use for that. BTW, my tool bench cabinets were all shipping crates that were really well built. Just added the simple doors, a sheet of oak plywood and oak apron.

Yes, I’ve seen some great looking benches made from SYP. The legend it that it will get harder as it ages.