Blog Woods

I have discovered that the quiet shop and the whisk and sweat of a handplane can be good for doing a lot of thinking. Thinking is a dangerous thing and I believe you should try to avoid it as much as possible. It will generally only lead you to trouble and dilemma, exactly where I find myself sitting tonight. Though I think in setting myself up for this blog entry I have seen some rays of sunshine.

Often it is better to be lucky than good, and luck for me this time means that I am building a small workbench / joinery bench for use at traveling hand tool demonstrations at the same time that a rather good size discussion about period workbenches has popped up about the woodworking blogs, importantly involving a couple of woodworkers who I happen to really look up to, and maybe quietly hero worship a little, Chris Schwarz and Peter Follansbee. The discussion related to the twin screw face vise depicted by Joseph Moxon in his 1678 work titled "Mechanick Exercises."

Most involved in the discussion speak about how the face vice cannot be actually part of the bench, and I have to agree it looks out of place and bulky, and it would obviously be very much in the way of the harder to see, planing wedge vise on the front left of the bench. The alternative thought is that this vise is an accessory piece that can be added or removed from the bench, like a bench hook.

I admit I am a simple man and would probably just accept the picture as it has been accepted for a while, as gospel. I was kind of excited to finally create one of these vises for my new joinery bench. Then I got to reading. (sigh)

First it was Peter Follansbees entry about 17th century holding techniques. He talks about how he uses hold fasts for the lions share of his holding, but he admits he does not do a lot of dovetail work. Something I very much enjoy and something a twin screw vise excels at. This posting was I think, inspired by Chris Schwarz posting about adding a planing wedge vise or bench screw, to his new Roubo workbench (read it here), This article got me excited about the style and I was trying to play with how I could also add this vise to the joinery bench, and perhaps to my bigger Nicholson Bench (along with accompanying deadman of course).

Then, last night I read Chris Schwarzs follow up on the twin screw, and I knew things had changed for me. He showed a very viable, and believable way to construct the vise as a separate accessory and attach it to the top of the bench when needed, (I do not want to just pirate the pictures of the set up and post them here, I walk a already walk a tightrope when it comes to that practice, just follow the link and read his post, once you see it it makes so much sense) Now I had some decisions to make, and none to soon as I was moving towards starting on the vise soon.

These posts have made me do some rethinking on the design of the project. If I remove the twin screw vise then I remove a major design element and I feel more free to change some of the rest of the design to. I spent the whole day dwelling on the issue and I have came to some decisions. I am basing these decisions on the fact that I am using this bench to do demos of Medieval woodworking, so I want my bench to be as old and document-able as possible, therefore I am doing away with the attached twin screw vise, and instead constructing it as an accessory that will attach to the top of the bench for when I need to do that kind of joinery. I will instead install a planing wedge or bench screw style vise. With this I can go most of what I desire anyway. built well enough I could probably even do some dovetailing with it . . . well see. I am going to drop the height by several inches to better accommodate that additional height of adding the twin vise to the top of the bench when in use.

I am also going to change the geometry of the legs. I very much like the "X" pattern used by Tim Williams (whom I borrowed the original joinery bench idea from) but with it I cannot utilize holdfasts as additional upright fastening systems like Mr. Follansbee shows in his post (see here) so I am  going to rethink those as well, probably to a more straight leg design on what faces me and a canted out angle on the backside of the bench.

I was playing with all these ideas when I started getting this post together and I found something that helped me make up my mind. In early 2009 I was not involved in blogs at all, I didnt write one and I didnt read them. So unfortunately I missed a post by Mr. Schwarz on an early 17th century Swedish joiners bench, recovered from a shipwreck. A reader called " J Rayner" posted it in the comments section of Mr. Follansbees blog. (Thank you J Rayner for posting this so I could find it!)

Carrying my Norse heritage with me on this medieval adventure I was instantly intrigued, and once I saw the picture, I knew that was the way I had to go. So a few more shop drawings to do tomorrow, and this weekend I can get working on making a huge dent in this piece. provided I can ever get this top flat, but that is another travesty for another day, until then

Cheers

Oldwolf

I store my stock of wood in my "barn" which is about 40 feet from the shop.  It is a pain for me to carry full sheets of ply to the shop to be broken down, so I often break them down at the barn.  Today I needed to do just that, but didnt really want to drag out the saw horses and fasten the Smart Table to them. 

Smart Table on saw horses.

I was standing there thinking that I needed to order a set of table legs when I realized that there was a platform right there in front of me, my utility golf cart. 

Utility cart bed.

This cart has been a life saver over the last year by letting me haul dirt, down limbs, fire wood, mulch, wood chips, air compressor, and even heavy tool buckets to wherever I needed them.

I measured the inside width of the bed lip and found that it was indeed not as wide as the Smart Table was long.  So I cut a 2x4 to the width of the bed lip and fastened it to the bottom of the table top with the same spacing on either end.

2x strips added to the bottom, even spaces on the ends and inset from the sides so that it can still be set on the saw horses.

Sitting on saw horses.

I could then just plop the table on to the top of the bed and I was ready to go.

The ends of the 2xs fit inside the bed lip.

The bungee keeps the support arms from sliding out while carrying the table by the handle (center of the close side).

I could then just extend the support arms, load the ply on to the table, and start cutting with the RipSizer.

Part way through the first rip.

When I broke for lunch, I was even able to leave the ply in place and pull the whole shebang in out of the sun.

invariably, after the question how much does a slab top table cost?, the next question is, are there other kinds of table bases i should consider?  there are.  the legs shown above are our most popular style.  based on a shaker design, below, they are cut (wastefully, i admit), from a slab of 1.5" thick steel on a waterjet, at a local steel fabricators shop.  the process is extremely accurate, but slow going through the thick, solid steel, so the individual cut pieces are expensive even before we grind, polish, drill, tap and assemble them.  they are beautiful though, and extremely rigid, and give the heavy slabs a lighter, sort of floating, familiar, yet contemporary look.  click the photos to enlarge them. 
each section consists of the main vertical, a 10" wing for stability and a 2.375 x .375 bar  to tie the whole thing together.  we offer natural, top and below, rainbow, a dark browny, bronzy, patina, and black.  these finishes are then top coated to stabilize them.


we also offer fabricated metal bases in a variety of styles.  above and below are our trapezoid bases.  also offered in various finishes, they can be fabricated in any size and can accommodate a design change to allow for a drawer.







with the square or rectangular tubing, we can offer a variety of shapes, including squares and xs, shown below.  these bases can be polished and patinated, or left more or less as is, like above, for a sort of industrial look.

the restaurant tables below we re fun.  randomly space 5/8ths rebar was welded between two steel plates, randomly painted and randomly rusted.  given that these were 42" high, tghey were bolted to the wood floor, but shortened to traditional dining table height, im sure they would make for an interesting look.




we also use plasma cut tapered legs on some of our dining and console tables.
or, our bridges base could also be adapted somehow to a larger, taller scale table.









and your imagination .. were open and happy to discuss your designs, either for a slab top you already own, or for a whole table we can design and build for you.  in general, prices for custom steel bases start around $1000. for the welded tubing designs and go up to $3500. to $4000. for the waterjet cut, thick, patinated steel bases.