having recently acquired an old wooden workbench I am faced with the delima of renewal. Top is 4 pcs. 5×5 with useable wooden screw end vice. The rear legs are splayed at approx 15 degree angle and are dovetailed directly into top. These dovetails are real loose and give the “rickety” feel as there is no horizontal support for rear legs. Do I make new legs…shim and use a “bedbolt” in underside of table top…shim & reinforce with horizontal bracing ??? I simply had to have it because of “what it was”…And the same emotion is still at work- do I restore or simply make it useable and put it to work. comments appreciated.
Discussion Forum
Get It All!
UNLIMITED Membership is like taking a master class in woodworking for less than $10 a month.
Start Your Free TrialCategories
Discussion Forum
Digital Plans Library
Member exclusive! – Plans for everyone – from beginners to experts – right at your fingertips.
Highlights
-
Shape Your Skills
when you sign up for our emails
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. -
Shop Talk Live Podcast -
Our favorite articles and videos -
E-Learning Courses from Fine Woodworking
-
-
Replies
Post pictures.
It's hard to comment without them because it will degenerate to "do what makes you feel good"
Cheers,
Eric
PJ,
A pix, or careful drawing, might lead to a bit of good advice. As is it is a bit hard to visualize your issues. Can't tell if it might be possible to tighten the DT's with a shim (ala Frid's method of tightening a loose DT), or to add a front to back stretcher or 2 between the legs, even though an angle might be involved.
Alan
http://www.alanturnerfurnituremaker.com
I'm not very good with the camera but here goes...
forgot one
re-sized
Leon Jester
thank you for resizing the photo's...
Np, James. Happy to do it.Interesting bench configuration. Any idea how old it is?Leon Jester
If the benchtop and dovetail legs are still mostly sound, that is, if the only problem is that the legs are loose, it looks to me like it would be fairly easy to clean up the cheeks of the dovetails, glue on some shims, and refit to the sockets in the top. It would only be a little more difficult to do it in such a way that the new wood would be invisible when the bench was assembled, if that's important to you.My own tendency is to say screw the historical purists and collectors, but that may just be because I've never owned a really valuable piece of old furniture. :)
What a unique old workbench! If its condition is as good as it looks, I would sell it as an antique and buy a new workbench with the money. Plus a few new tools with the money left over.
Do you have any more pictures?
Dan
Looking at the pix makes it easy to imagine how this bench has spent the past 20 or 30 years.
It must've been stored on it's side or with the topside down where water occassionaly sat.. perhaps even on an earthen floor.
I see insect damage, water damage, and glue joint failure.
If the top is water logged, as it appears, it could take quite awhile for it to dry out.
Once it's dry, you can try restoring it but from what I can see restoration is going to involve a significant rebuild.
Good luck. I think it's going to take every bit of emotion you have for this bench to ever see service again.
as far as i know the bench came from the damp basement of an old funeral home. I placed it on its top to make photographs. There does appear to be insect damage and evidence of moisture problems...but with the clamshell vice on the side it really looks cool. thanks to all.
From a funeral home? Perhaps hat explains why it is long and narrow!
Woody,
If you go back far enough, many of the older funeral homes evolved from joiner's shops, as they were the guys who built the coffins, and had a wagon to haul the body. The word "undertaker" used to have the same meaning as our "contractor" does nowadays.
Cheers,
Ray
Plain,
Personally, I wouldn't do a damn thing to it unless I really needed to for stability and the like. I suspect that the splay and pitch of those legs makes it very effective with minimun construction. Just set it up and start using it. It's a great planing bench...any value, other than utility, comes from the worm holes and the like... Put that in a kitchen with other primatives...wow!
Fantastic planer's bench, definitely worth restoration and by all means, use it. My grandfather had several out on different construction jobs (long ago)around Greenwood SC when I'd visit in the summers. Taught me the basics of sticking interior molding with a #289 followed by Stanley 55. The square front with dog holes to support the material, with the back legs splayed out to resist the rearward force of planing. One would walk many miles a day planing molding on both edges of a 12' to 14' plank, then rip the finished shape off the edges and start all over.
I've got a stack of air-dried Beech in 3, 4 & 5" planks, up to 19" wide & 10' long, and since I already have a nice joiners bench, I'll reproduce this planers bench. Thanks for the memory and the idea! Good luck with your restoration, but let it dry out first and tighten up the dovetails with maple parallel sided shims, but do not glue them, and don't add any bracing.
John in Texas
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled