Official Luthiers Forum!

Well, it was a productive Saturday in my shop. I carried out some needed improvements on my workbench, which included:

1. Replacing the 1 ¾” thick top with a 2 ¼” top. The extra thickness should help it stay flat longer, and give me some extra thickness to plane off when I need to flatten it in the future. The 1 ¾” thickness is really my only regret on this workbench that I put together about 12 years ago. I love my bench, but I should have put a thicker top on in the first place.

2. Drilling 34 dog holes in the pattern I am used to: 3” in from the edge all around, 6” apart, and a row of holes up the middle. I use a lot of bench dogs, holdfasts, and jig knobs that screw in from the bottom, through the dog holes. My bench is basically a large clamping jig.

3. Putting better skids on the feet of the cast iron legs.

4. Re-installing the twin screw end vise.

5. Letting it drink up some butcher block conditioner (mineral oil and wax). The top I bought this time came as an oiled top, rather than a polyestered top. I’m going to like the oiled top better.

Photos of the end result:

SWEET!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Beautiful bench!

Yeah, it’s a decent looking butcher block. The one I bought 12 years ago was one of those Grizzly industrial benchtops. It was fine, but this one is a Boos block, and I do think it is built better. And both of them have saved me the trouble of laminating a top myself, which I appreciate. If I put a ton of time into a laminated benchtop, I would probably baby it too much.

Nice! Looks a bit top heavy with such a small base. Maybe I'm just used to seeing workbenches with a leg more or less in each corner.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Colin—

It’s pretty stable. The cast iron legs weigh about 120 lbs for the pair with the tension rods and stretchers. The top weighs about the same amount on its own, and the twin screw vise, with wooden jaws, probably adds another 35 lbs. A person would need to do more than push in order to tip one of these over; she/he would need to lift, too. The legs are 23” wide, and my benchtop is 30” wide, 60” long. I can slide it with some effort, but I would really have to work hard to get it to tip.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Yes Flatness.

I was pretty P**ssed off when I found that my 2 times threequarter ply top had a serious dip towards the vice. No wonder my planing of thin strips wasn't working well. I will use plywood again but make sure it is flat and supported properly with framework next time.

Dave

Cant beat a stand alone workbench.

Dave--

Have you thought about building a torsion box workbench top?

I really don't need a laminated maple benchtop to build guitars. I built several of my early guitars on top of either plywood or MDF workbench tops. But I do enjoy working on the laminated maple, that's for sure.

To Clinchriver's point, yeah, being able to walk all the way around the bench is great. I highly recommend a stand-alone bench for those who can make it work in their shops.

Looks just right Don

Ed