A quick post because I haven’t accomplished much on the personal front in the last few weeks. Winter decided that it wasn’t really finished with New England and it got really cold again and winter storm Stella showed up with 18″ or so of very heavy wet snow (at least in Carlisle) – our biggest snowfall all season.
I haven’t really gotten my heated shop set up yet because I need to make my first workbench (plus other things) and it has been routinely in the single digits or the teens every morning for the past month (?) – or for a while anyway. That is bit too cold to easily overcome in my Dad’s unheated (and not insulated) shop. So a bit of a hiatus on building stuff at the moment. But scheming – I mean PLANNING, yes that is what they call it – planning! has continued. I have pretty much decided on a main workbench structure. It will combine a Ruobo (French) bench with some features of old German benches (sliding deadmen) and English work benchs. German and Ruobo are very close cousins in that they are heavy structures while an English bench is more light weight and designed as a torsion box or monocoque. I like the idea of sliding dual vises but also the large clamping surface of the English bench.
Anyway my “plan” is to assemble the top using threaded steel rod and nuts that are through drilled instead of doing a giant glue up of the top surface – an idea that my Dad had. Some glueing will be needed in order to handle the joint work around where the legs are – but ideally I can avoid laminating a 300-400 pound top! More to come on this
Also planned is a new Drill Press from Woodcraft supply – my Dad and I really like this one – it is very, very smooth operating. Precise. It is a couple hundred more dollars than the well respected JET floor height model, but it is noticeably better made
Pictures below of the various bench design families I am talking about here
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- Rubalo style wood working bench – large heavy framing and top. Legs are flush with the top to provide a flat plane for clamping things
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- Roubo German bench with sliding 2nd vise
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- English style torsion box
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- English bench with canted vise to allow large pieces to be held vertically and not bump into the vise screw
Ok – now I have more coffee – where was I (I am sitting at my kitchen island with the sun coming up over my shoulder, coffee in hand and Amazon Alexa playing some Chris Isaak from the cloud). Thats right – winter and snow. Definitely spring feels far away at the moment – it is clear right now but supposedly it is going to snow latter today.
Plans for the spring are to do house stuff but also get out and map out the old mill sites around Carlisle and compare them to site on my property. Something I want to do BEFORE the poison ivy arrives – lol
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- Melinda Lindquist bowls from Carlisle Artisans – looking good! http://www.carlisleartisans.com/
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- Alewife garage in the midst (beginning really) of winter storm stella
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- cozy in front of the fire during the blizzard
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- snowy sunrise in Carlisle. Note the half moon visible above the old silo. March 2017