To do list for Shaker side table:

• Settle on a design
• Make a cut list
• Purchase lumber
• Break down stock …

…..and detour… that sinking feeling hit, the unfinished sawbench. I could almost see its one lonely, tapered eye staring at me from under the bench. It’s been sitting in that dusty, dark place where unfinished projects go to wait for completion.  So let’s finish it.

Notably the bench is the last project that I wrote about on the blog before taking a “hiatus”, so it seems the logical place to pick things back up. As a bit of background, the sawbench is meant to serve two purposes. First, it’s great for, you guessed it…sawing. Power tools have pushed saw horses to a height that is great for using a handheld circular saw, but awful for a hand saw. The sawbench gets the work piece down to a more manageable height for hand ripping and cross-cutting. It also allows you to use your knee as a vice. No clamps needed, simple and efficient. The second purpose is as an introduction to staked furniture. There are numerous ways to build a sawbench, but by taking the approach outlined by Chris Schwarz in the Anarchist’s Design Book, I will begin to learn some of the key skills of chair making. It seems simple, right? Create a hole in the bench top, hammer a leg into it and call it done!

Last we saw the bench we were discussing the geometry of the legs and boring the tapered moritses in the bench top. This is exactly where we’ll resume.

 

With the four tapered mortises complete, the top is finished. Next we’ll move on to the legs.