I posted this before but for some reason it showed up in the “Plans” folder…… not quite the right place for the discussion.
Anyway, as I said before I find myself enamoured with work benches. I built a very fine one ( I think anyway) after reading the Work Bench Book. When reading this book I read about The Dominy Bench, the oldest documented work bench in the US ( circa 1760). I chanced upon a bench in a barn in Ossipee NH and I knew right off that all of its its design elements were identical to the Dominy bench from the double screw vice without a garter to the sliding board jack to the wrought iron board stop in the top. So…I bought the bench for the princely sum of $150 and moved it home to my shop. I have a feeling that something like this is very rare and I would like to hear from anyone who may have an indepth knowledge of benches like this one. I would like to know if anyone else has one like this or has studied them more than I have. I have attached 2 pictures of the bench; one is what it looked like after I got it home and the second is how it looks in the addition to my shop I built just to house it. I sanded the top lightly and put a poly finish on the top to protect it. I use the bench all the time but I am very carefull with it. It does some things better than my modern bench. I have 2 other antique benches as well , one dating from about 1850-60 and one from 1900 or so. Neither of these captures my attention like The Old Bench. I find myself just looking at it almost as much as I use it. When its cocktail hour and I am out in my shop I just sit back and look at it and wonder where it started out and what projects were made on it.
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General Discussion is certainly better than Plans, but the right folder for this is The Gallery. :o) Just FYI for the next time, don't bother re-posting it again.
well, it seemed that gallery was more for things completed by the poster....this bench certainly wasnt
Cherry,
Do you have the Dominy book? "With Hammer in Hand", by Charles Hummel UVA Press, 1968--It of course describes the Dominy bench in detail, and does a compare/contrast with other contemporary approaches. Shows engravings from 18th cent French reference (Roubo).
Someone,Dover maybe?, has come out with two vols. of Denis Diderot's "Encyclopedie", which also shows interiors of 18th century French craft shops. I've lent my copy out, so can't give you info on the publisher, mine's paperback, I got it at the deWitt gallery in colonial Wmsburg several yrs ago
You gotcherself a nice old bench there, looks like. Enjoy.
Regards,
Ray
A friend of mine here in NH sent me a section out of the "Hammer in Hand" book. I have studied this and I can only see one difference between what I have and the Dominy Bench. The Dominy Bench has its female threads set right into the front section ( the hardwood section)of the bench. Mine has a hardwood "nuts" set into the bench front section. Mike Dunbar, the chair maker from NH, made a bench several years ago using a friends old bench as a pattern. He called it his Federal Bench believeing the bench to date from the early 1800's or late 1700's. This bench too had hardwood nuts set into the front section of the bench but it hard garters in the vice to move the board as the vice was opened. My vice has no garters. Other than the nuts set into the hardwood section the Old Bench is made in the same fashion as the Dominy Bench( thru tennon and over wedged legs) with the same accessories ( hand forged board stop set into a block that is set into the hardwood section of the top; sliding board jack; grease hole cut into the top; double screw vice without a garter). I just hope my sons get into wood working because I consider my benches to be family heirlooms.
john,
Sure sounds like a good 'un.
Regards,
Ray
I found this reference:
http://www.inthewoodshop.org/destinations/dom97.shtml
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