wilbur
>After my run of New Year's nap taking, I finally made some movement towards building my "real" workbench. I jointed and squared up eight 8' Douglas fir 4x4s that I've accumulated from a local borg over a 12 month period. When I'm done gluing this up, I expect to have a benchtop that's essentially clear quartersawn Douglas fir with pretty tight grain (21-38 rings per inch, if I counted correctly).

That poplar beam that I had been using since May still works great. I've been able to plane, chop mortises, do chisel work, and saw using it without issues. I think that the reason it's taken me so long to get around to building my "real" workbench is that the poplar beam has worked out so much better than I thought it would. And actually, the main benefit that I think I will get from this bench is extra counter space. I think this benchtop will wind up being about 7' x 22". Over the past several months, I've needed the extra counter space much more than I've needed a leg vise.