Last night I processed image files until the wee hours as I waited for word that Mike Siemsen’s new DVD “The Naked Woodworker” was ready in our warehouse. We’re still working out a few little bugs, but it will go up for sale in the store no later than Monday.
Meanwhile, I woke up this morning with crossed eyes – I couldn’t bear to look at a computer screen. So I got a jump on the knockdown Nicholson I’m building this weekend. It’s based loosely on Mike’s design in “The Naked Woodworker,” but it incorporates some knockdown bolts that are both super-easy to install and robust.
Judging from the comments on an earlier post about this bench, there is some confusion about how these work. They aren’t like threaded inserts. I’ll have more details tomorrow or Sunday when I get to that part of the project. I think you’ll see why these tee-nuts are superior to other solutions out there.
I’m not doing everything like Mike does on his DVD, as you can see in the photo above. Mike assembles the legs with screws so you don’t have to have clamps. I have clamps, so I put those to use this afternoon.
So I’m not fully naked. To the great relief of my neighbors.
More tomorrow.
— Christopher Schwarz
That is the bib overalls and nothing else of woodworking.
Ben,
Sounds like school in Arkansas to me.
That beautiful clear pine will look naked without the screws in . . .
Given the title of this post, have you picked out names yet? (Love the new comment header.)
Brings back fond memories.
Back in Arkansas, 50 odd years or so, I had a friend that wore bib overall cutoffs… & she loved skinny dippin! Oh well!
Looking good
I see a 5 ft version of this bench in my future. Perfect for demos.
I can’t wait to place my order for the DVD. A great idea might be to add some hidden storage.
You will generally have better results in the long run if you pay more attention to where the heart of the tree was in relation to your boards when you glue them together, especially if using flat sawn big box store pine of uncertain moisture content.
It’s hard to say about the rest, but the glue up in the foreground would definitely have been more stable if the shorter board were flipped so its heart side were glued to the side away from the heart of the longer board. Keep the growth rings the way they would be if sawn from larger stock in a glue up like that and it will be less likely to self destruct. The grain usually matches better that way too if it matters.
That’s a minor detail, but isn’t most of what we fret over?
I have to disagree.
1. For me, even in a workbench, appearance is always going to come first when it comes to assemblies. Growth rings/grain direction is secondary. The inside face of those short boards is incredibly ugly. The back boards have other cosmetic issues.
2. Gluing bark-side to bark-side will keep the edge joint tight if the boards cup over time.
And these boards are at equilibrium with my shop according to my moisture meter, so it’s not really much of an issue anyway.