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This is a spin-off from my earlier Becoming a Galoot blog.
I had high hopes that this project could be a hand tool only project. That proved to be a bit ambitious given my limited tooling and expertise at hand planing.
That blog wrapped with the leveling out the top of the bench; removing about 1/2 inch of material over a 5 foot long by 15 inch wide surface (1.2 cm by 1.52m long by .38m wide). This was caused by my hand rip taking an unfortunate dive on the front corner. It may not sound like much but it was pretty noticeable.
With the top level, I wanted to square up the front and back sides of the bench so I got to work setting up my router jig. I will admit to this being a bit of a guilty pleasure. It’s like a big kids version of going to Grandma’s house and playing with Lincon Logs; part scavenger hunt part engineering endeavor. While I could easily make a more permanent solution that would ruin the fun.
Work progressed pretty quick on this side, then I flipped the bench to level out the other side. With these cuts made, the bench is really starting to take shape.
Now the tedious work begins; sanding through the grey weathered exterior to expose the wood inside. I’ve got the bench on my mobile work station that should make moving this outside to sand a whole lot easier. It’s by far the heaviest single piece that I have worked on so that has presented some challenges.
That dark part is a bit of mineral spirits I rubbed on to get an idea of how this piece would finish up. It’s pretty spectacular. Here’s a close up
That also shows the quality of the router bit as that surface is fresh off of multiple passes with a 1.5 inch surface planing bit; it looks darn near a finished surface.
Well, that’s all for now. I hope to get some good work done over the weekend and shoudl have an update then.
Source: LumberJocks.com
Drift Redwood Bench Build #1: Getting things nice and square
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