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I usually keep a log that records all the time I work on a project in the shop. But few people believe me when I say that I spend about 40 hours building an ancient workbench.
Their disbelief is understandable. I hear stories about people spending a year constructing a traditional European-style bench and sinking hundreds and hundreds of hours into the project.
I don’t begrudge them. Heck, I’m sure their benches look a lot better than mine does. But I doubt those purebreds can perform any tricks that my mongrel cannot.
We just wrapped up the second day of the bench-building class here at Kelly Mehler’s School of Woodworking in Berea, Ky., and things are moving smoothly, though we are a tad behind.
Here’s the status report after two days in the shop. (Read about day 1 here.)
1. All the tops are glued up with all the through-joinery complete, plus all the cavities and complex recesses for the tail-vise hardware.
2. All the legs and stretchers are cut to size. All the tenons are cut on the stretchers. All the mortises are cut in the legs.
3. About half the class is doing a final fitting of the joints on their bases.
4. We’re riving the pegs to drawbore the bases.
Tomorrow will be all about installing their leg-vise hardware and preparing the parts for final assembly. If we are lucky (meaning, if I yell at them enough) we should be assembling the benches on Thursday and bolting on the hardware on Friday.
Today we also made some sore backs. On the tool list I told them to bring ibuprofen and brown liquor. One student commented tonight at dinner:
“I thought that was BS. I’m not so sure now.”
Wait until Friday about lunchtime.
— Christopher Schwarz
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I’ve been through a bench building class with Chris and Kelly. Ibuprofen and brown liquor should have been apart of the required tools list for the class.
Hummm, does the Felder-n-Festool filled workshop help with the 40 hours ?!
Chris,
You mention 40 hours or so for a French bench, I assume that’s the time to build with hand and power tools? Do you recall how long it took you to build the one you did by hand with the slab of cherry for the top? Just curious mainly.
I had about 120 hours into my French style bench working entirely by hand, but at least a third of that was spent in jury rigging my old crappy bench into supporting the three 12/4 ash beams that became the bench top.
Cheers,
Josh
I think I’m gonna like this magazine. New to it, I am. Sorry to post this here, as it doesn’t have to do with this project. Somehow I guess I am overlooking it. If I have a question about something,anything, where do I ask, if it isn’t about a blog in progress. I see where you post questions readers have asked, but can’t find where to do it.
Thanks
The crosscut tables on Kelly’s tablesaws are serious business.
My last class at Kelly’s was in March. These videos really have me missing the experience.
Chcuk
Thank you for taking the time to document each day. Hopefully by Friday you will have shamed me into finally finishing my own.
Interesting that you used the crosscut table on the table saw to trim the bench ends to length; I would have thought a beam saw (in the ideal case), the track saw you were using, or a circ saw in general would be better suited to that sort of cut.