The Trailer for "A Tale of Two Benches" *PICS*
William Duffield, on the Cohansey
>Here are a few photos of two works in progress, quick and dirty solutions to a common problem: a growing custom furniture shop with a growing backlog and an immediate need for more benches, cheaply.
Beyond this common theme, the two solutions could not be more different.
First, the Spruce Goose started out as about 30 feet of Norway Spruce glu-lam, about 6x16 in cross section. If you need a bench to build your dream bench, but don't already have one, this might be a good place to start.
You should be able to build one of these with simple carpenters tools, of either the power or hand variety, on a pair of saw horses, or even on the floor if necessary.
After gluing two 7' sections together, I attached the shoulder vise to the bottom surface.
I cut up the rest of the beam and ripped each piece down the middle to use for legs and stretchers. You should be able to do the joinery for the base using the bare vise attached to the top, even without the front face.
With the vise in place, I made a front face from 8/4 hard maple and screwed it to the front of the top. If you build your the front face with hand tools, you will want to build the base first, instead of overloading the saw horses. I drilled a row of dog holes and dropped the tail vise in place.
I drilled two rows of dog holes to work with the shoulder vise.
More info and pics on joinery, and reports of additional refinements, will follow at a later date.
Second, the Benchosaurus is being rebuilt from the ground up. Its many years of abuse came from the ground up, and from every other direction. Here, it's skeleton barely stands on its own, and the tail vise is in pieces. It doesn't have one tight joint, the bottoms of the legs have lots of rot, and the back legs are quite a bit shorter than the front legs.
It was "Free, to a good home." At least, the leg vise works.
More photos will follow, as reconstruction progresses. We're gluing up the leg assemblies this morning with rebuilt pinned M&T joints, and attaching new trestle feet to the bottoms of the legs, to get it up to a workable height. Here may well be the long awaited sequel to "The Last Remake of Beau Geste."
