So I’ve hit the reset button.  Armed with only the tools listed below, I’m going to start again in my woodworking life.  First step is to knock together a decent workbench, then follow it up with a tool storage unit.

Let’s talk about the tools, first:

• Handsaw.  For this, I’m using the excellent Brooklyn Tool & Craft Hardware Store saw.  I love this thing, but any impulse hardened contractor saw from the home center will do.  I especially like the Craftsman 20″ saw from the home center, if you’re going that route.
• No. 5 Jack Plane.  The body is a Type 11 or 12 Stanley; the rest of it is very much a harlequin baby of scavenged parts from a number of different planes, plus a new Honduran Rosewood knob and tote.  I could easily have gone with a No. 4 smoothing plane, such as the very decent Taytools version.  I just like the slightly longer sole for quasi-jointing.  I’m using two different irons: one for scrubbing and one for smoothing.
• Speed Square.  Nothing fancy here; just a plastic Stanley speed square from the home center.  I agonized about whether to use my Starrett Combination Square.  But, amazingly, this speed square (which I’ve had for a billion years) is pretty square.  This will, in fairness, be the first thing I swap out for a high end tool.
• 1/2″ Chisel.  If I had to choose just one size chisel to use forever, it would be a 1/2″.  And the Lie-Nielsen socket chisels are second to none.  Period, full stop.  Narex are pretty good too.  Buy buy the ones from Lee Valley; the Amazon ones seem to be poorer quality, for whatever reason.  That’s a Thorex hammer, which I bought on recommendation from Paul Sellers (and I can’t live without it now).
• Folding Utility Knife.  As noted above, I fully consider myself a disciple of Paul Sellers, and this knife is absolutely all the marking knife you need.  Cheap and effective: the apartment woodworker’s dream.
• Tape measure, mechanical pencil, wood glue.  Stanley, PenTech, Titebond 1.  ‘Nuff said.
• Cordless drill driver.  Whatever you’ve got.  Mine is a DeWalt 20V.  A two or three jaw brace would work just as well.
• Sharpening Stones (not pictured).  I use Atoma diamond plates.  You could honestly get away with just the 1200 grit version, which after a little use breaks in nicely.  But having the 400 grit version makes flattening and regrinding easier.  I’m not bold enough to freehand sharpen, so I’m keeping my Lie-Nielsen sharpening jig (but a cheapo Eclipse knockoff will work fine too).

The plan is to make a low workbench.  Not a staked version.  That would require auger bits for a brace and a spokeshave to make round tenons, not to mention a bevel gauge or comparable jig.  This low bench will be patterned roughly off a Schwarz-pattern saw bench.  I prepared the slab off camera.

Douglas Fir 2×4’s at my local home center are about 102″ long.  That’s eight and a half feet, in the vernacular.  Which means the off-cuts from a 72″ workbench are long enough for legs and gussets on a low workbench.  That said, there are not four clear off-cuts from the seven boards I had.  And I would never lie to my readers.  I’ll use some 2×8 offcuts I have left over from a Naked Woodworker workbench I made for my brother for the legs.  Or just buy a couple more 2×4’s from the home center.

Speaking of not lying to you guys, I’d like to be clear about something.  I surfaced two of the seven boards for the glue up using buckets as saw benches, to prove I still can.  But for the sake of my lower back and sanity I did the rest on my 60″ roman workbench.  I’m not a masochist, after all.  At least not in my woodworking.

I’m going to leave it there for now.  Next post, I’ll work on the legs and change up the rules a little bit.

JPG