Bench top

[SARGE..g-47]

I personally feel Jon, that the base is "more" important than the top as long as you flatten the top. I have built around 20 + benchs (I lost actual count as I generally build one every summer during the humid monts since the mid 80's) and if the base is solidly built, you can add another top in a few days as I just did.

And you don't have to do it now as saw-horses will suffice till you get around to it if necessary. It's just a work-bench made for work. But.. when you do get around to it.. if you don't use metal attachments... through M&T's.. bridle joints.. etc. should be used IMO. A sturdy base is the foundation for the top and it will allow a top to rack under heavy hand-planing regardless if you have the strongest top in the universe.

I test my benches by rounding up 4 teen boys and offering them $10 each to rack it. They push.. pull.. and use their teen testerone as teens do and if it holds (and that design will with just joints in place and not even glued at that point) the base if ready for the sacrificial top.

Just my theory as I feel too many get caught up in makind show-pieces that take much too much time away from building show-pieces. And I also feel many they think it must be built with rock solid timber as the traditional maple (US) and beech (Europe). But that is somewhat over-hyped as much as giving a WW a machinist calipher and turning him loose on his TS or whatever.

I answered a post the other day elsewhere where the guy had his shorts in a wad because his ripped stock was .004 off. He got around 20 answers on how to fix that before I chimed in to get to work. I challenged everyone to look at .004-.008-.015 and even .020 on a cheap feeler guage to see that you can't force a knat's butt between any of them. You get more tolerance than that from tension being released from the wood when severing it.. run-out of the blade and compression when clamping on glue-up.

High tech is great... but it is often carried well beyond where it should be. You won't find one professional that will labor on a bench for 6 month or a year or worry about .020 tolerance as they don't have that kind of time for foolishness. They would laugh if you mentioned either as they can distinquish what is important and what is not.

Good luck with your bench as already mentioned...

[SARGE..g-47]

My next bench will be built of Southern yellow pine -- a wood that is cheap, plentiful, readily available to me, and actually stiffer than most of the bench-building woods one would generally assume to be superior (i.e., beech, maple, ash, red or white oak). I have a stack of SYP 2x10s acclimating on my shop's floor right now; they will probably become part of the top. I'll buy the rest of what I need on Saturday morning and expect to get the project under way a few weeks later, when everything has gotten down to around 9-10% moisture content.... Larry G.

If you have never used it Larry.. I think you will be very pleased when you do. And I whole-heartly agree that most woods are acceptable.. maybe if we skip balsa or a few other extremely soft woods.

And BTW.. I stay busy and keep forgetting to ask I have to sort of hit and run quickly... but where is Off the Back. At first I thought it may be Australia referring to the Out-back.. but if you are somewhere that SYP is cheap and plentiful as it is here... that leads me down another path of wonder?

Regards...

[SARGE..g-47]

Hey Sarge, nice curls! I love the shavings from a well-tuned plane.

Thank you Uncle Cracker as I do also. Now I will shock you and tell you I sold my Lee Valley #4 1/2.. LV #6 fore to use some planes to get those shavings that I was given as I was told they were junk when someone gave them to me. And don't get me wrong.. I personally feel the LV's are a great hand-plane and I prefer them to the Lie Nielsons.

But.. I also found that other planes will work and sold them to free up money that could be used elsewhere where it would be a better option. So.. the "gemmes" got the call over the LV's for that purpose. I did a little fettleing with the soles and mouth and added some thicker Hock irons but...

Those are genuine Anant # 5 jack shavings on the shelf. Kinda course compared to an Anant #4 I have.. but I set the angle higher on a Jack to get waste off quicker. I still have my LV low angle smoother and would not depart with it.. but as others I don't think they are total junk.

What I do feel is the performance of a plane has as much to do with whose hands they rest in and not totally the quaility of the plane itself. So.. if my cheapo Anant's don't get great results as the tauted ones and we all know who they are...

I don't blame the plane.. just me as I am the one holding it.

Regards...