Any woodworkers?

Well I started a new project today that I have wanted to do for years. A solid ash hardwood wood workers work bench. I milled the logs in 2009, air dried for years and very hard. The emerald ash borer came through here and wiped out the ash trees. I grabbed as much of it as I could when I could. This is the last of my stash, all 2" slabs.
2 logs 9 foot long.

I snapped some chalk lines to cut the live edge off.

I found that if I stacked 2 pieces of 2x material on a singer sewing machine base it was the same height as my black and decker workmate, lol.

Ripping the wane off.

Here you can see the tunnels from the ash borers. That's what killed this tree.

The reward from a days work with a circular saw. All the lumber needed for the bench top.

All the rough sawn lumber is stickered and in the shop to acclimatize a bit before I mill it up. It won't take much, this is many years air dried lumber, very hard and dry.

Some of this will be used for the base and legs.

 

That's gonna be one hell of a work bench!

 

The top will be 3 5/8" thick.
I'll be installing this vintage record wood working vise that I restored.

 

Had someone order a medal holder (she sent a pic and I had to look up wtf it was ) and another scrappy cutting board but didnt want a juice groove or hole so that was a quick and easy way to get rid of some of my scraps

 

I dug out some walnut over the weekend to incorporate into the workbench. Decided I wanted it not to look so plain.

Stack on the left is all walnut.

This is all lumber that I chainsaw milled.

 

It took me a second to realize that you sealed the edges. At first I was like " that endgrain looks too light to be walnut!"
That's gonna be one classy work bench

 

I myself just finished this walnut rolling kitchen island table for a client. The crotch figure on the live edge top is insane.

 

Yeah walnut crotch is beautiful!

 

Well I got off work a little early today so I went down to the shop and worked up a drawing for the workbench build.
My outfeed drafting table, he he.

Glass of ice tea helps.

And I have a rough plan for the base.

I'll stare at this for a few days to see if I missed anything, I'm sure I did, lol. It's going to be heavy and beefy, but also able to take apart in case I ever have to move it.

 

These are some walnut slabs I chainsaw milled and saved for tables. They are 3" or 12 quarter thick.
Sequential cut slabs.
The one on the left will be my coffee table some day.

Crotch figure is nice!

This slab is also a massive beauty, it's the one in the pic of the stack above. 3" thick, about 28 to 32 inches wide if I remember correctly.

And it has that beautiful crotch figure.

Just thought I'd share the pics.

 

Gorgeous slabs man! I've chainsaw milled a lot of the slabs I've used. It's fun to have a hand in every step of the process from tree to finished piece!

 

Not as sexy as that walnut, but this is from the "odds-and-ends" bin at the woodshop ... $7 of zebrawood ...

 

This was fun. Order of operations was tricky and the bark had to be carved with a flexknife.

 

that's cool! bark looks damn seamless too.

 

Today in the shop was all about getting the shop ready to do some work and process the lumber for the new workbench.
I took a measurement of my powermatic mortiser and it's going to come up a bit short for mortising 6" leg stock so I'll need to make a riser for it. I really don't want to chop out all the mortises for the legs.

All the mobile machines are now staged for use.

All this crap on the old bench needs to go and be put away.

Now I have a work surface. This will be the last project on this bench. This old bench used to be twice as long, I cut it in half when I moved into this house. Other half is in the metal shop side of the basement.

Ok almost ready to get to work.

All this 2" ash needs to be ripped into 4" wide boards.

But first I need to change to a rip blade on the table saw.

 

So now it's time to make saw dust. Started by snapping some chalk lines and ripping of the live edge on the walnut with a circular saw.

Man does it feel good to be making sawdust again. I just love the smell of walnut!

All the walnut and ash are now cut to rough dimension.

The ash.

10 years air dry and 2 weeks in the shop and the ash is at 10.5% not bad.

I started jointing 2 square edges on the ash. I started to get fatigued and tired so I knew it was time to quit for the day. Accidents happen in your shop when your tired.

I'll need to dump the dust collector drum before the next milling session. The jointer and planer make a lot of chips

To be continued.......

 

Got my hands on about 60 board feet of American Holly. This is some beautiful wood. Very heavy and creamy white color. Bandsaw boxes and jewelry boxes in the plans. Pic shows it beside cherry for color comparison. I had not actually seen it before, only pics in the woodcraft catalog.

 

holly is great stuff! really nice for accents in stuff like purpleheart and pink ivory. i keep all cutoffs cause i'll use it for some smaller stuff.