I had a break in paid work and decided to use the time to build a new workbench. I've been stock piling wood for the bench for a while. I bought a slab of cherry a couple years ago for The unbelievable price of $100. The slab is 4" thick by 18" wide by 80" long. Not only was it cheap but it had been air dried for 10 years. Luck struck again when I was able to buy a white oak log that had been cut length wise and air dried to 12% moisture content for $20! I was able to construct the entire base from the white oak log. I had to buy one stick of white oak to make the ship-lapped shelf boards. The top sits on two twin tenons and it's screwed to the upper stretchers by a 3/8" lag screw. I had a lot of fun building a new bench and working with such large joints. Bench building is more like timber framing than furniture making! I used a naturally derived pine resin varnish for the base and a 1:1:1 ratio mixture of beeswax, mineral spirits and boiled linseed oil for the top to help keep glue from sticking to the surface when assembling future projects!
Huge joinery!
Peg making to join the mortise and tenons together.
A drawbored mortise and tenon. Should hold up for a couple centuries.
First coat of wax:oil:spirits on the top.
I added a drawer to keep essential tools close at hand.
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