Shopsmith Forums

A clear workbench top...
I have two in the farm/mechanics shop that I have not seen the top of in a couple of decades.
This is in the basement woodshop. I built this old bench long long ago from what ever I had on hand. At one time years ago it sat on a dirt floor a while and I had to repair the bottom a little. I have threatened many times to build a new bench from scratch but it has kind of become an old friend. I do want to make a couple of improvements to it and "freshen it up" a bit (another name for paint ). I made the vise in the foreground using an old vise screw I found "someplace" and I have a quick action vise mounted on the far end. I still usually keep using the old vise I made.
That's a heavy folding work table leaning against the front of the bench waiting for me to find a new spot for it. That's 1" rough sawn pine stacked on a couple of saw horses behind the bench. It's waiting on me to build a new mobile lumber rack for it and several other stacks of different species.

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4 days now and the bench top is still fully clear. Diana did lay her gloves on it when we were moving some firewood in but I made her move them.
The work table has been moved from its leaning spot in front of the bench to another spot where it is almost as much in the way as it was leaning on the bench.
It's supposed to get pretty cold this weekend, down to minus 10 Sunday night. When it is down around zero there is no place I would rather work than in the basement woodshop with the wood burning furnace. Maybe I can get a few things done like building my mobile wood rack and move some stuff around "again".
Things are getting to the point now where even with too much irrelavent stuff in the shop area a little work actually shows progress. I even have some room now opening up where I can put some stuff to be removed "just for now" until I can get enough time in other buildings to make space for it there (when the temps get back into the 40's and 50's).



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I had one of them thar clean workbenches once. For about 15 minutes while I finished it up.

I don't know if I ever posted a picture here of the south end of of my woodshop bench. That is a Reed vise on this end. BTW, the other end of the bench is officially titled "The North end of the bench..." :-) I was thinking that I built this old "friend" about 30 years ago but upon reflection it may have been closer to 40... I was going to build a new one but have become rather attached to this old thing so I'm just doing a rehab on it.

I think I had a clean workbench once, but I have no photographic proof. I'd previously believed that the half-life of a clean workbench was too short to be captured by a camera. You've proven me wrong.