sometimes i feel like an addict

sometimes i buy wood without necessarily being in a position to do so. but i can't help myself. behold, two green flitches of 8/4 maple with great heart colour and curl. starett square for comparison.

bench work

i've been back home for a couple of weeks now, after spending the month of may out in british columbia. i had a great time out there, but now it's back to reality. the first order of business was to get moving on my bandsaw. i spent a bit of time and money in a machine shop one morning and walked out with a new bottom shaft, a new brass bushing for the top wheel, and the top shaft cleaned up. i'm pretty happy with the work they did. now all i need is babbitt for the bottom bearing. that stuff is a little tricky to find, but i've got a couple of leads.

after that was all said and done, i got down to the task of flattening the top of our bench. i was inspired to get my ass in gear on this after seeing people do there's at inside passage. i figured it was time to do this one. so, like most jobs, there was something to do before getting started. i had to tune up my great grand-father's no. 8 jointer. didn't take much but grinding out a nick in the blade. it runs like a champ.

the bench had a pretty serious dip in the middle, and i had to make an awful pile of shavings, but i pretty much got it pretty flat. it's hard to get too accurate without a long straight edge to check with, but, close enough.




after that was all done, i started on a bench for myself. the other one is something that my father and i built six years ago. it stays in his shop. but every bird needs to leave the nest at some point, and i'm pretty sure my number got called. so a bench is needed. i'm basing this one off of some photos of seth janofsky's bench in woodwork #55. it uses a veneer press screw and a trapped block as a tail vise. this most definitely will have some shortcomings, but the price was right. the bench is going to be about six feet long and two feet wide with some three inches of depth. i went with round dog to simplify my life. all the other holes are for plugs that will replace the knots that were there. this thing is being built out of common 2" x 12". now i just need to find a wide thickness sander to flatten this puppy out. once that is done, off to the base.