A quick post because I haven’t accomplished much on the personal front in the last few weeks. \u00a0Winter 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.<\/p>\n
I haven’t really gotten my heated shop set up yet because I need to make my first\u00a0workbench (plus\u00a0other things) and it has been routinely in the single digits or the teens every morning for the past month (?) – or for a while anyway. \u00a0That is bit too cold to easily overcome in my Dad’s unheated (and not insulated) shop. \u00a0So a bit of a hiatus on building stuff at the moment. \u00a0But scheming – I mean PLANNING, yes that is what they call it – planning! has continued. \u00a0I have pretty much decided on a main workbench structure. \u00a0It will combine a Ruobo (French) bench with some features of old German benches (sliding deadmen) and English work benchs. \u00a0German 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. \u00a0I like the idea of sliding dual vises but also the large clamping surface of the English bench.<\/p>\n
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. \u00a0Some 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! \u00a0More to come on this<\/p>\n
Also planned is a new Drill Press from Woodcraft supply – my Dad and I really like this one – it is very, very smooth operating<\/a>. \u00a0Precise. \u00a0It is a couple hundred more dollars than the well respected JET floor height model, but it is noticeably better made<\/p>\n Pictures below of the various bench design families I am talking about here<\/p>\n\n\t\t