Looking great Matt! After a little oil fills in, you'll be sitting around gazing lovingly on those dovetails and won't notice a thing. 

Home stretch.

RMW

You said these were your first dovetails of any kind. Well, let me assure you that many woodworkers would be envious to have such nice dovetails as a first!  Just like Richard/RMW says, after a while you won't notice such small defects anymore. And other people will most likely not notice at all. Well done! 

Thank you guys. I aim for perfect and if I fall a little short that's okay as long as it doesn't affect anything structural/functional. I'm cruising now and can't wait to get the tail vise finished up so I can play around with it:



I'm in a chat with 3 other guys building these or variations of it and we all agreed if we had to do another it wouldn't take nearly as long now that we've worked out how to do some of these tricky things involved in the build.

Thanks for following along.

Matt

Awesome build! Gives me motivation to finally do one of my own…

Do it. I'm glad I am.







Matt

That end cut you did is a great test of how well you assembled the blank (and your cutting skills).
Looks like you get an A+

I mocked up a prototype dog based on the plans included with the STR build. Fit is nice so I used it to create a template so I can batch out the rest with a flush trim bit. I'm tying up loose ends like the dogs and the bottom shelf before I move on to attaching the tops.

Matt

Looking good Matt

Ron

Thanks Ron.

Here's my production setup in full swing. Taper jig to remove as much of the waste as I could before routing:



Double sided turners tape to hold it in place:



Vac sys to hold the template since I'm lacking a router table at the moment:





Each dog is oversized in thickness and planed to fit each hole:









Kind of a fun process. I have to make the rest of the springs and attach them to the dogs and make a custom dog for the sliding block. It's slightly different in size since I made a separate template to route that dog block versus the others. I may just do it by hand.

Matt

Beautiful Matt! Congrats.

That's an heirloom you'll enjoy using for years.

RMW

Looks great

Several multiples of tens of years... 

RMW

@Mini Me

Post #74 on page 3

That's what Matt did

Ron

Looks excellent Matt. Great job. Are you going to use a router sled to do the final flattening or go old school and use a plane and winding sticks?

Ron

I was able to knock this off the punch list. By design that dog lands directly over a tenon on the front leg. I had already made the access hole on the leg I just needed to mortise for the dog once I had the top on. I was nervous doing that but I took it slow with a 3/8 chisel and cleaned it up at the end with my 1 inch chisel.

Matt

Looks really good Matt. That spot isn’t ugly, it adds character.

Ron

Photo dump time. I've been busy. Everything is done except for applying finish. Gap stop is made and planed, I put a little ramp on one end so I can just lift the opposing end up and slide it between acting as a planing stop and being flush. No slots for tools at the moment. My thinking is I want to limit places for junk and dust to fall through the top to the shelf below. I only put in 4 holdfast holes in the rear slab for the same reason. I can always add more, can't take them away. The first holdfast hole I did isn't straight but that's on me for not getting the starter hole perfect before hand drilling the rest of the way. Other 3 are perfect. They all do their job, albeit that first one bugs me when the holdfast goes in skewed. Nothing to do about it now and lesson learned.

Sliding deadman was kind of fun to make. I decided to go with a different look for the sides than most because I don't own a bandsaw and that template shape was one I had lying around. I like it as it gives me a "handle" at the mid point to move it around.

The shelves were finished up yesterday. I had to resaw some 8/4 leftovers to make them and let them hang out for a few days before doing the shiplaps. It took me a while to figure out how wide to make them to get even gaps and still span the width of the bench underneath. Lots of SketchUp involved. I went with a 1/16 roundover on those because I like the look.

Any questions, ask. Too many operations to explain them all.



































After adding that crubber material (ground up cork and rubber) to the vises it's incredible how much better they grip a board with so little force. I just lightly spin the leg vise wheel to clamp and the board will not move.

For finish I was originally going to go with danish oil all over. I've since decided not to do that based on this being in my house and not wanting that stench lingering for weeks or more. I'll probably go with water based poly on the base since it doesn't see much abuse and for the top I'm leaning toward 2-3 light coats of 50/50 shellac sanding sealer. My concern isn't so much about having a super durable finish on the top. I want something that will give some protection and is easy to repair. 2-3 light diluted coats should provide that without making it overly slick. Open to suggestions. Whatever they are it has to be easy to use and can't be stinky or too much of a film.

Matt

Outstanding work Matt. You’ll be able to use that for many years.

Ron

I'm a self described Osmo addict and even I went the shellac route on my benchtop.  Its going to take an massive beating so shellac is plenty of protection. I did go with pastewax also and am glad it eventually wore off as it was much too slick.