>
> Yeah, +1 on the comment that you have a wonderful shop!
>

Thanks!


> You’ve somehow avoided the dreaded “Saw Problem!”  Only six handsaws are
> visible in the photo essay.  Your pics of the leg dovetails demonstrate
> that you are good with handsaws, yet somehow you’ve been able to decline
> acquisition opportunities.
>

Ha, well, I claim no particular virtue there.

First off, what I have is what I was left with after my initial acquisition
phase, during which I was fairly indiscriminate. Went to a lot of auctions
in the late 90s (a bunch with Jim Cook, if he's reading lately) and came
back with box lots of all kinds of goodies (and weird stuff, that I'm still
finding.) At some point I realized that I actually had everything I needed
to do work, and that I'd be better off acquiring onesy-twosy as needed,
rather than going for some kind of completeness, which is an itch that can
be both irresistible and more or less impossible to scratch properly. That
helped a lot. But there are any number of tools on shelves (oy, the plane
habit I had at one time...) that are still awaiting rehab and use and are
more or less duplicates of ones I already have and use. Plus I got
distracted by other pursuits (bicycling, photography) for a decade or so,
and there was only so much time available outside of work. But I got the
bug again a few years ago and determined to start dealing with the things
that felt like they were holding me back, and the need for a better, more
stable workbench was one of them. Hence this project.

Second, I guess you couldn't really see the pile of saws on the shelf under
the bench. :-) After I finished the bench, I built a simple saw till (that
is later in the Projects album) and they're now up on the wall over the
bench, where the ones you already saw (sorry) were hanging. Still, there's
only about 3-4 more all told, a couple of which are duplicates that I could
either file in an alternate fashion or just ignore. I could get by with
several fewer, I suppose, but, well, they're here now...

Neat how the partially-completed top furnished a work surface to build the
> legs. That could be a lesson for wooden bench-builders everywhere.
>

It was tremendously useful, if only for space reasons.

One question: if you did it again, would you still make the tenons on the
> top of the legs before the mortises in the top?  (Craftsmanship of risk:
> the top is a much harder-to-obtain piece of stock.)
>

Well, I see what you mean, but I have to say: chunks of wood of this size
are not trivial to come by in any sense, at least not for me, so even
having to replace the legs would be a real PITA. That said, yeah, I'd still
do it this way. Frankly, there are ways of dealing with nearly any mistake
you're likely to make, so I'd still recommend just jumping in. As I said
earlier, it's much scarier in contemplation than the actually difficulties
turn out to be. As it is, I took off a bit more in the mortises than I
needed to get the legs to seat fully, because I struggled a bit figuring
out exactly what was hanging up. This is what wedges are for. :-) If you
are contemplating this style of bench, I also recommend Schwarz's video,
which was very helpful in allowing me to completely visualize what I'd be
doing. Also feel free to ask me questions. For the most part, what you see
is what happened, but if anything is obscure or ambiguous, just ask.


> That bench is better than anything I’ve ever made; my hat’s off you.
>

Thanks very much, but it's the best thing I've ever made, too. The lesson I
learned, which I strongly commend to you, is the old saw (there I go again)
about thousand mile journeys and single steps. At every stage, you just
break it down into the next couple of steps and worry about them only.
Eventually (very eventually in my case) you get there. Finishing gave me
tremendous satisfaction, and the feeling I could build most anything I set
my mind to, if I went about it in the same way -- rather than worrying
about how big a job it was, or all the ways I could screw it up. The fact
is I did screw it up! Many times! But I was always able to come up with a
way to route around it and it all came out OK in the end.


> You’ve emboldened us all!
>

I sincerely hope so...I look forward to following others' journeys; be sure
to document them!

Robert