Building a New Workbench Top

The final glue-up.

After using a good, hard maple workbench at Jeff Headley's workshop, it became clear to me that I needed to upgrade my own workbench before I would be able to do the chiseling and planing I'd need to do to complete the Winchester style Chippendale desk I started in Jeff's class.  So I bought a copy of Chris Schwarz' book on workbenches and read it through, then decided that rather than building an entirely new bench, I could do quite well by building a new top and installing it on my current base, which is made of 2X4s laminated into 4X4s. 

Ready to plane.

I began by buying and acclimating 8-foot 8/4 hard maple boards.  With the help of a friend, I jointed and planed these, then ripped them to 3-inch widths.  This is the only time I have had trouble with my SawStop contractor's saw.  It ripped the first half dozen boards smoothly, but after that point it began to stall until it refused to cut at all.  I later discovered that the motor was overheating from the hard cutting.  It finished the job the next day with no hitches. 

After cutting the boards, I stood them on edge and glued them up in sets of three, then glued up those sets until I had a nearly complete bench top.  My plan was to attach a six-inch apron to the front of the bench.  Before doing that, I installed a Veritas twin-screw vise and front jaw to the apron to be sure it would fit.  Once that was working well, I disassembled the vise and completed the final glue-up.

Low-angle jack plane.

That's where things stand now.  What remains is to plane the bench top smooth and level, even up the ends of the bench (they are a bit uneven at present) and install the new top on the old base.  I'll use a Lie-Nielsen low-angle jack plane with a toothed blade to take the roughness off the top, then complete the job with a low-angle jointer and smoothing plane.

Norm

Fairfax Fall Festival

Our booth location on a street corner

 Last weekend, Jeff Fleisher and I set up a booth at the Fall Festival held in downtown Fairfax, Virginia.  Jeff had a 10X10 foot tent and we each purchased five-foot tables to show our wares. We had what we judged to be a good location--a street corner close to the food vendors.  We had prepared well in advance.  I made large signs featuring our business names and our work, which you can see hanging at the rear of the tent.

Jeff was offering platters, a few bowls, some jewelry boxes--including one with chip carving on the lid--and some small book or CD racks.  I displayed about 50 pens, some business card holders in cherry and walnut, and small desk clocks in the same woods.

Closeup of our booth

It was a beautiful day and the crowds were large and continuous.  But soon we noticed that people were carrying food but few shopping bags, which showed that they were out for a nice day but were not buying much.  That was certainly the case at our tent.  I sold only two clocks, one pen and one business card holder.  Jeff sold only one bowl.  I don't think we made enough money to pay for our booth location.

We concluded that we would not do this show again.  It is fine for folks to have a nice outing, but there isn't much of an incentive to buy things.  We are hoping that our next show--a two-day show in November--will be a better one.  It is billed as a Holiday Crafts Festival so it may draw a better crowd.  And, with the holiday gift-giving season approaching, perhaps attendees will be in a better buying mood.

Norm