Before pic... yeah, that's the ticket!

Ian Gillis

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Location
Nova Scotia's beautiful south shore
Can you tell a man's state of mind by the amount of clutter on his workbench? Perhaps. I spent quite a while at the saw filing vise this evening and I decided that tidying up could wait til tomorrow.


I am in the process of organising my resources. I've put together some storage units which will probably go where that wire rack and freezer chest are.

Some of you who know me from the handtool forum might be surprised to see the bandsaw (not even a vintage one!). You might be able to make out my mighty Beaver 4" jointer to the right of the bandsaw -- mounted on a Singer sewing machine base!

Now that I've posted this mess, I'll be even more motivated to get the place into shape :D
 

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Some progress made

Hi

I spent some time tidying today. Not that the shop really needed it ;)

My bench was my first major project and it was 'almost' entirely with handtools. I ripped the top out of 14"x4" old growth Douglas Fir. This bench was once part of two floor joists in a circa 1910 Vancouver BC warehouse. They ended up as staging on a jobsite and a kind friend rescued them from the dump and delivered them to me.

I don't remember any more how long it took to rip, edge joint, glue-up and flatten the top. My tools were very basic -- a Craftsman 10pt crosscut saw, an old 6pt "Warranted Superior" rip saw which I brutally sharpened. All the planing was done with nasty jack plane which was "re-ground" (on a 250 grit waterstone) at various stages to hog off material, to joint the edges and to flatten and smooth the top. The 3/4" wide mortises were cut from either side of the leg because my Sears butt chisels were too short to make it all the way through. And at this point I hadn't heard about boring out the waste :dunno:

None of the paint rings were made by me. The bench served hard duty in a common workshop are in a 73 unit housing co-operative where I lived for several years. I was relieved that it never got sawed in half!

It's a knock-down bench. Notice the wedges holding the stretchers into their mortises. It was based on a design in one of the best hand tool books available at the time "The Complete Woodworker" edited by Bernard E. Jones. This book is also a favourite of Jr Strasil, who I admire greatly.

I'm going to re-flatten the top -- it's cupped a little bit since 1986 -- and anchor it to the floor. I'm also working on an under bench cabinet which I hope to get back to soon.

So, there you have the heart of my shop. It's one of my most treasured possessions. Everything else in the shop is secondary to it.

Oh, I say 'almost entirely with hand tools' because I cut the two stretchers on a friend's table saw. They were the last 2 pieces to be cut.

[See next post for missing photos]
 
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Well, Chuck... how come nobody replied to the first pic? I figured people were thinking I was a slob and a degenerate And that's only half true :eek:

Anyway, all I really did today was to move some stuff around and to hide a lot of ugliness. I stuffed a lot of stuff into drawers. What I really want to do is have the tools I use all the time close at hand, and to have the others sorted so I can find them when I need them.

It's not often the old bench top is empty. I thought maybe I'd leave a pencil sharpener or something else to show that I was still at work :)

I hope to be in this place for a long time to come. I'd like to streamline the shop as much as I can. Make it suit my style of work, and not vice versa.

Oh well, thanks for taking a look at my "museum" ;)
 
Ian, I haven't seen the entire top of my work bench in probably 4 years. I wish I had the wall space like you to hang a few tools and get stuff more organized, but drawers are about as close as I'm goint to get for now.

Looking good though :thumb:
 
Wow:eek: That's a few klicks down the road:thumb:

Boy, you are right about that. It was a "FUR PIECE" when I hauled an airplane load of Lychees from Antananarivo to Belgium, 'n Nova Scotia is a good piece further across the Pond.:D But Hey, he shouldn't be embarrased, 'cause not Everyone can have an "Imported" Workbench.
 
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Hi Ian.

Maybe nobody made a comment about your first post because its appearance is so familiar to most of us (except Rennie:)) that many people thought " So what's special about it?":dunno:

Now that we can distinguish tools from cans, and work surfaces from garbage it looks much better. Ooooopss... this reminds me that I have a workshop to tidy up as well.

BTW you seem to have a pretty good table saw( at least to me) could you PM me with its characteristics and some pics please? I do not want to hijack this thread.
 
Well, Chuck... how come nobody replied to the first pic? I figured people were thinking I was a slob and a degenerate And that's only half true :eek:

Anyway, all I really did today was to move some stuff around and to hide a lot of ugliness. I stuffed a lot of stuff into drawers. What I really want to do is have the tools I use all the time close at hand, and to have the others sorted so I can find them when I need them.

It's not often the old bench top is empty. I thought maybe I'd leave a pencil sharpener or something else to show that I was still at work :)

I hope to be in this place for a long time to come. I'd like to streamline the shop as much as I can. Make it suit my style of work, and not vice versa.

Oh well, thanks for taking a look at my "museum" ;)


Ian, I don't know why I didn't reply to the first post/picture. I looked at it and felt right at home. A used shop is a loved shop. And, yes, it is your shop. That is all that is important. Enjoy.
BTW, the top of my bench goes from being completely cluttered to relatively neat and clean. The professional shrinks among us will have to explain why I do this, but some of my failures (blow-ups, splits, etc.) get tossed on the back of the bench and I just keep them. 'splain that. :dunno:
 
Tod Evans: "a clean shop is a sign of little work......."
Rosco told you to say that, Huh? Tod? LOL :rofl: :rofl:

Ian, I like your bench. It looks simple yet solid. It appears to be able to be knocked down for transit. I'd like more info on it and pix too, when you send that to the other "Toni". :)

Aloha, Tony (spelled with a Y) :thumb:
 
Loose ends

Thanks for all the replies and comments folks.

To answer a couple of questions; first from Toni C. The table saw is a Ryobi BT3100, now discontinued. It is an acceptable saw for light occasional work, I would say. It has a universal motor as opposed to the induction motors on "real" table saws. If I remember correctly, it's in the range of 2000 watts. Ripping hardwood thicker than 1 1/2" is slow, even with a proper ripping blade. It has a fairly unusual feature of a sliding table. This is a useful thing, but it requires careful setup to make accurate cuts.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions about the saw.

The good news is that they are cheap. The full retail price in Canada when new was about 250 Euro. I grabbed mine about 4 years ago when Home Depot was clearing them as a discontinued item. Used prices are generally between 70 and 120 Euro, depending on accessories included.

Here's a User Group dedicated to the saw. www.bt3central.com

They have some decent articles for tuning and improving the saw.

Other Tony -- I have the book with the plan in it, but it's copyright of course, and can't be posted here. I'll try to come up with another solution for you.
 
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