We must all live with the choices we make.  In my case, the choice to make a small workbench out of home center Douglas Fir.  Even sharp tools bounce around because of the varying hardness.  But one great property of Douglas Fir is its compression.  A friction fit joint can be nearly mechanical if done right.  And the angled back legs of that small workbench are beyond friction fit.  They are sledgehammer fit.

The most important trick is getting the angle right.

While I recently chose the benchtop boards for their clarity and color match, the legs had been prepared for some time.  As a result, the grain pattern is not great.  I used what was left of the Lamp Black milk paint (leftover from various tool chests) to paint the undercarriage.  It’s a silly contrast that serves no purpose other than vanity.

The back legs are lag-screwed to the top, but the front legs merely through tenoned.  No glue.

I did not glue the short rails to the legs.  They are just friction fit lap-jointed with carriage bolts.  The laps on the back legs are intentionally left long, so the short rails (and not the benchtop itself) butt up against the wall.

In the absence of glue, I guess this is, in theory, a knock-down workbench.

Once the paint dried, I packed up the bench and the Dutch tool chest and brought them to their new home at my buddy’s house.  I was sad to see it go, but I know both the bench and the tool chest will have a good home.  My buddy does metalworking, so I also bought him a proper vise as a housewarming present.

Goodbye, dear friend.

I’m officially over Douglas Fir for a while.  With the extra room in the shop, it’s time to get started in earnest on my next project: a new guard rail for the staircase.  I need to check the building code, probably.

JPG