Why not have a "Bench Shots" section?

Re: Why not have a "Bench Shots" section?

Michael Recchione

>At first reading, I thought, "Just what the world needs, another workbench page". But on further reflection, I think it's a really good idea. One of the things that makes it good is the opportunity to incorporate discussion on each design, and to have that discussion grow over time. When I was first starting to work wood, there was Rick Manderscheid's workbench page - at the time it was text based, with some ascii art, and was a collection of discussions saved from the OldTools list and maybe rec.woodworking. It was very helpful, but it was static - there was no way to add to it, so, while new discussions could refer to it, they never became part of it.

A growing, living section of discussions, with pictures, might be very helpful. Or it might perpetuate "paralysis by analysis". Either way, it would be fun.

I don't know about other folks, but speaking for myself: Discussions of new tools when I'm happy with my old tools don't turn me on so much - if I'm not in the market for a new plane or whatever, I tend to just skip discussions of this or that new product. But, for some reason, I never get tired of workbench discussions. Maybe because there are so many trade-offs and so many ways to approach the problem, so many constraints, etc. And maybe because, unlike most of our other tools, this is one we typically design and build for ourselves. So they tend to be very individual expressions of a particular woodworker's thinking.

Anyway, a long-winded way of saying "bring it on!".

Great idea.

Jim Reed @ Tallahassee

>I think novice woodworkers do not always understand the importance of a bench. This is especially true of handtool workers. A good bench is critical to the success of almost all planework. A bench scrapbook would be a great idea.

Great idea Allen!

Todd O. Cronkhite Maine Native, Presently Away

>

A suggestion

Dan Donaldson

>Another whole section would add extra work for Ellis using time that he probably does not have. How about this for a suggestion:

Someone write an article about benches, likes/dislikes pics etc. Then if anyone has something to add or another type of bench to discuss etc, write it up and send it to me and I could edit it into the bench article. If good discussions turn up on the board, those could also be captured and added.

Think something like that would work?

Re: A suggestion

Scott in Douglassville

>I dunno, I'm not advocating more work for Ellis et al, but I like the idea of a compedium of "bench tours" similar to what Rod Peterson set up on the shoptours.org site. If that can't be done here, maybe someone'd volunteer to make it happen elsewhere and link it in?

Re: Why not have a "Bench Shots" section?

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>Possible solution. How about just posting them in the shop shots format and putting "bench shot" in the title. Then a search would cull the non applicable shots and allow only the bench shots to be viewed? Any thoughts if this could work?JR

Re: A suggestion *LINK*

Mark Harrison - Brisbane, Australia

>What we really need is a Wiki for benches. It so happens that there is already a stub (i.e. a stub is a placeholder awaiting contributors) at Wikipedia and all that is needed are enthusiastic contributors. It's free to sign up as a contributor.

Have a look at the link.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workbench

Here's a thought

Ellis Walentine

>If you click the SEARCH link at the left, you can do a search for existing shots and articles about benches and the shops they live in, which is another aspect of bench design. I typed "workbench" into the keyword box and got 81 hits. Relevance is always iffy, but it is a reasonably quick way to zero in on this particular shop feature. Then, if you want to discuss it on the board, you have the URL of the shot to link in your post, and off you go with your discussion.

We could certainly add a new page or department for a bench gallery if it would make things easier, but I suspect there's a practical solution that uses our existing structure (Shop Shots, Articles) to accomplish the goal we want. Jim Cummins and I used to discuss how to manage all the information that accumulates in a site like this. I think there is a potential problem with having too many options or too much variety. Too many messageboards, and people don't know where to post their query. Too many departments, and we don't know which one to put the new additions into. (Is this an article? a Shop Shot? a Bench Shot?) But, an index page might work, if the need and the demand are there. What we would need is an editor to create a list of headlines and one-line descriptions of the articles we do have already; then I can make up a page with entries that look like this:

Bench of Dreams

Not one, but TWO! tail vises, and an Emmert for good measure.

All it would take is someone with the time and patience to work on the indexing for me.

What do you think? Would an index page be worth the effort? Or is there another good approach?

Ellis

Re: Here's a thought

Kevin French

>As far as 'Boards' go I like the division here. As far as a 'Bench Board' will we need aseperate board for the Normite, electron burners, and another for 'Knuckle Drag'as'? or would we have to declare what type of bench it was?

And what about knuckle dragging normites?

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>So many of us work in so many variant hybrid versions of the (really rather silly) handtool/powertool dichotomy. I agree with Ellis: let's look at indexing the shop shots, and leave it at that.

Any bench champions here?

Ellis Walentine, Host

>I like the idea of creating an index of our workbench resources, and I can see linking in various magazine articles and book reviews, too. What we seriously need, though, is someone ambitious enough to work on this. I've got more projects on the burner than Carter has pills.

By and for you,

Ellis

Re: Any bench champions here?

Dan Donaldson

>If someone has the time to collect the data, but doesn't want to do the formatting or html stuff, I can help with that. I don't have time to do the legwork and writeups for it right now, but I could help with setting up the pages, uploading etc.