After a lot of work the bench has entered this world at 38″ tall, 23″wide and 67″ long. Benchtop is 3 1/4″ thick. Weight? Er, probably around 175. It’s a big baby. And since it’s all yellow pine (entirely from 12×2 boards), it ran under $100. Before the vise.
It’s possible that as much time went into deciding what kind of bench to build as did building it. Eventually, Paul Seller’s plan from his “Working Wood” won out. I had the book and DVDs already, but more importantly it’s a straight forward design that looked sturdy and workable. A workbench, not a lifetime experience, was what I was after.
Not perfect, not a looker. Now that it’s done I have a real tool for other projects.
I probably would have done some things differently in building this, like not fuck up the mortises so violently. There are a few tweaks I may make down the line. This will probably be a Frankenstein’s monster bench – a way for me to play around with ideas without worrying that I am screwing it up. That we’ll be moving in a year and I might have to leave it behind plays a part in that, removing whatever remaining concerns about making it pretty and perfect.
