How I Ended Up With A Split-Top Saw Bench
It all started when I went to the walnut store. I needed some for a project that shall not be mentioned. While I was there I noticed that they had a pile of 4-foot long select pine on sale and you know how it is. You’ve just got to paw wood that’s on sale. And this got me to thinking – an all too dangerous proposition. I bought some.
You see, I have had saw bench envy. I have a saw bench. I built it long ago, far away. See here for details. I built it when I was more of a hybrid woodworker than I am today. Back then I used handsaws for all my cross-cuts but when ripping stock I uncovered my table saw and, well, let’er rip.
But now I’m not doing that. My table saw has become a very expensive assembly table and I’d come to covet Shannon Roger’s split-top saw bench, which is great for ripping stock. Every time I watched him use it to rip stock in his Hand Tool School, I told myself I needed to build one. Also, I had come to want a bench that was a bit wider than my original.
And so I began one Saturday morning. The boards I’d gotten were all 6″ wide, 4/4 rough-cut stock. All of the boards in my sawbench are about 6″ wide, edges planed flat. I’m not opposed to using a thickness planer so I shoved the boards through it and followed up with a jointer plane to achieve flat surfaces. I tried to go light on the pieces that became the bench top and those are still nearly an inch thick. The others a bit less. The only dimensions I can provide is that the bench top is 32″ long and the bench built to be 20″ high to match my shop bents.
Those were the only two measurements I made. The legs are two 6″ boards joined together and the sideboards cut to allow some overhang on the ends. It took me a little over two hours to generate the rough parts.
It took another two hours of fiddling around, smoothing the surfaces, though not to furniture grade, chamfering the edges of the top pieces, cutting the rabbets in the legs for the sideboards, and finally screwing it together with 1 3/4″ wood screws.
It was fun doing a project without setting up a camera every 20 minutes. I’m pretty happy with it. Anyone want an old, used saw bench?
Test Driving A New Rip Saw On A Mountain Road
You know the feeling when you get a new tool but don’t have a reason to use it immediately? If you’re like me that means you go to the scrapbox, find a willing piece of wood, and apply tool to wood… with no goal other than to play. I did that with the two new handsaws I just completed but somehow, for saws, this sort of thing doesn’t satisfy in the same way as the scrap box play with a plane, spokeshave, or most other tools.
So, when I realized I was going to need a bunch of thin walnut panels I decided to use my new rip saw. I didn’t build it for resawing and it may be a bit fine for such things, but…new tool…new task…sometimes a hammer gets used to drive screws.
Frankly, I was surprised at how well this 7 ppi saw worked to cut these panels, each is just shy of 2-feet long. Took me a couple hours to create this pile. Had much fun.
Cheers — Larry
New Saws At Wood’n Bits
Long ago, far away, Bob Roziaeski of the Logan Cabinet Shoppe made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. He had a source for saw blanks and for almost nothing relative to the time required, he offered to cut/sharpen teeth to my specs. When the blades arrived they were gorgeous and I set to work creating handles for them. I finished the cross-cut saw in short order and it has gotten considerable use, though I’ve been somewhat diverted from my shop lately.
The rip saw, however, is another story. The handle was roughed out and even attached. I’ve actually cut a couple boards with it but it sure wasn’t comfortable as the handle hadn’t been carved. Have I mentioned that square edges on a saw handle aren’t a great idea?
Anyways, I am finally clearing the decks for a new project and the first thing I’ve done after finding my workbench, and moving all the stuff it was under, was to carve that handle. I now have a great set of hand saws that are oh so sweet. Both perform beautifully. Thanks, Bob. Now I really can sell my table saw.
For those into details, the saws have 24″ blades. The cross-cut saw is 8 ppi, 15-degrees of rake, and 25-degrees of fleam. The rip saw is 7 ppi, 4-degrees of rake, and 0-degrees of fleam. And yes, that’s a fairly high toot-count for the rip saw. I already have a nice 5 ppi Spear & Jackson and wanted something a bit finer. Likewise, I have a nice 10 ppi cross-cut saw and wanted something a bit coarser. One can never have enough saws, ya know. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
What Happened to Wood’n Bits?
It’s me [crazy old guy jumping up and down while waving here]. I thought it about time that I write something here, though I am wondering why.
At the beginning of the summer my wife and I decided to do some home renovations. Wood’nBits has evolved into a hand tool blog so it didn’t seem appropriate for me to talk about my new “favorite tools”, my Sawz-All and drywall mudding trowels. There didn’t seem a place to talk about ripping out walls, replacing walls, redoing floors and the installation of what seemed an endless number of feet of moldings. And so I didn’t.
It wasn’t that there was no use of hand tools. When faced with ugly metal and plastic thresholds for our newly installed wood floors, I used
cherry instead, creating a bunch of them using hand tools. I cut the moldings with hand tools. It was simply faster and safer than doing it with my table saw. My Yankee spiral screwdriver is still my tool of choice for driving drywall screws and, of course squares, hammers, and a host of other hand tools found there way into the job.
Once we worked our way to exhaustion, and had the house moderately put back together (there are still some things that need doing) we decided to take a break from being boring adults and started enjoying the summer. We went bird-watching. We started doing some art. I did some writing. Mostly, we goofed off. And again, there was nothing to share here.
When I did start feeling guilty about Wood’nBits, however, something occurred to me. I had disappeared for several months. And in that several months no ONE person asked what was going on. Not even one of my “fellow” bloggers. This seemed strange to me and I can’t help but question why the heck I put time and energy into taking photos and writing these posts. I haven’t really come up with an answer. Care to offer one?
Cheers — Larry
Her Book of Shadows – Canada Day Sale
This doesn’t have much to do with woodworking except as a partial explanation for why I’ve spent so little time in my shop lately. The other part of the explanation is that I’ve got my house torn up as we’re installing wood flooring, new moldings, etc. It’s woodworking but hardly something to report on. Besides it makes my knees hurt too much for me to want to photograph it. But I thought some of you might be interested in how a woodworker writes a mystery novel so…
Canada Day Sale 
I’ve decided to have a ‘summer’ sales of my eBook, Her Book of Shadows 
If you like to read mysteries without serial killers, sex and lots of violence, you’ll like Her Book of Shadows
Review comments:
“This is such a well written mystery, and full of make you laugh out loud lines. I loved the setting of Quebec City, and the snippets of the French language scattered throughout made it so authentic.” – esldonna
“How refreshing to find that Larry Marshall’s first is a who-dunnit in the best tradition of well crafted stories of crime solving.” – Polystamper
“This is a beautifully crafted book, full of interesting convincing detail and engaging characters.” – Janet Guerrin
Book Description:
In Her Book of Shadows, retired cop, Scott Riker, lives with his wife and daughter in Quebec City where he heads a group of interventionists. Directed by Quebec business mogul and philanthropist, Luc Duchesne, the group uses their talents and resources to stand between people in trouble and the criminal elements who would do them harm.
Riker agrees to find Jodie Burke, a teenage girl whose parents say ran away. But when Jodie’s friend turns up murdered on the Plains of Abraham, it becomes clear that Riker faces something more than just a runaway girl. Time is running out and he must find Jodie and prevent whoever is trying to kill her from succeeding.
Riker struggles with his emotional involvement in the case, caused by the similarities between his daughter and Jodie Burke. This, and his attempts to reconcile his risky business with his role as father and husband add to his internal conflicts but maybe the two roles can be compatible.
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