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What's On Your Workbench?
- Thread starter HaMMerHeD
- Start date
I have a bass that I converted from an old guitar. It is just over 24" and has a piezo. I used Gold Tone strings. Thick, rubbery, thumpy, the sound gets close to Upright Bass. They look like Uke Bass strings, but longer.
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This spalted beech followed me home today.
I've never had any figured top in the house, either with or without an instrument attached to it, but here it is. I'm amazed at how many colours are in this wood. There's shades of red, yellow, black, even some green although the photos don't show it. Is this all one tree?
You can be certain this will be on a bass one day.
Looks nice. That definitely can all be one tree. Box elder can get some interesting and similar colors in it also.
And making templates. Bondo is amazing for that.
I started French polishing my Kawai. Kind of stupid and boring but at the same time so relaxing and calm way to finish a bass.
Wow, those are amazing! Are they thick enough to re-saw and bookmatch?
I won't try to resaw them, I don't think I could pull that off with the tools I have. And I'm not even sure bookmatched symmetrical tops are my thing.
I imagine these two glued together sort of asymmetrically, forming one top. I think that can look great.
They are 10 mm thick, by the way.
10mm would be pretty dicey even on a very well set up bandsaw. By the time you make the cut and then remove all the saw marks you’d be lucky to end up with 3mm final thickness. You’re definitely right not to attempt resawing those.
And, as you say, it will still look very sharp as an asymmetrical glue-up. If you used them as wing tops on a neck-through with the neck stringers showing on the face the asymmetry wouldn’t even be a consideration.
Well there's an idea I hadn't even considered. I'll toy with that, thanks!
Why do I always forget to take “before” pictures?
Here we have what was once a nice Vaughn & Bushnell #904 1/2 bench plane in pretty sorry shape.
I picked it up at a pawn shop while traveling through New Hampshire not long ago. Cosmetically it’s a dumpster fire but all the pieces are intact so I decided it was worth restoring to user condition.
These V&B planes don’t turn up very often. They’re drop forged rather than cast so, unlike a Stanley Bailey, they won’t crack if you drop them (not that I make a habit of dropping planes) and almost all of the parts were originally nickel plated. Very little of the nickel remains and I’m afraid even more will be lost in the process of cleaning the rust and pitting off of this poor abused little fellow. It will make a good plane, though; the original iron is in decent shape and has a lot of material left, the totes aren’t cracked and there’s no real damage other than the rust.
The photo was taken after I stripped it down and removed all the rust and some of the pitting from the bed. I’m going to have to lightly lap it on a plate to get rid of some rust buildup, still, but it won’t be too bad. The sides are worse than the bed itself.
I’ve been on the lookout for a 4 1/2 size plane and I like the Bedrock style bed on this one so I’m going in. I’ve never cared whether or not my planes say Stanley on them so this will join a rather motley crew when it’s restored.
Here we have what was once a nice Vaughn & Bushnell #904 1/2 bench plane in pretty sorry shape.
I picked it up at a pawn shop while traveling through New Hampshire not long ago. Cosmetically it’s a dumpster fire but all the pieces are intact so I decided it was worth restoring to user condition.
These V&B planes don’t turn up very often. They’re drop forged rather than cast so, unlike a Stanley Bailey, they won’t crack if you drop them (not that I make a habit of dropping planes) and almost all of the parts were originally nickel plated. Very little of the nickel remains and I’m afraid even more will be lost in the process of cleaning the rust and pitting off of this poor abused little fellow. It will make a good plane, though; the original iron is in decent shape and has a lot of material left, the totes aren’t cracked and there’s no real damage other than the rust.
The photo was taken after I stripped it down and removed all the rust and some of the pitting from the bed. I’m going to have to lightly lap it on a plate to get rid of some rust buildup, still, but it won’t be too bad. The sides are worse than the bed itself.
I’ve been on the lookout for a 4 1/2 size plane and I like the Bedrock style bed on this one so I’m going in. I’ve never cared whether or not my planes say Stanley on them so this will join a rather motley crew when it’s restored.
- Jun 30, 2010
- 49,587
- 221,942
- Disclosures
- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
I have a friend who restores old planes - it's amazing seeing the before & after...
There are a lot of degrees of restoration. The people who make 100-year-old planes look brand new amaze me but it becomes a whole hobby in and of itself.
I don't typically bother with the cosmetics of my tools. Most of my planes lived pretty full lives before they got to me so I've had to restore all of them to some degree or other but for me that doesn't extend past "Get it flat, get it sharp and get it tuned." Once I'm there I don't care what it looks like as long as it cuts. This V&B was once a really beautiful tool to look at, and it never will be again, but it will still be a beautiful tool to use. It will outlive me, that's for sure!
Man, I feel like I've been out of pocket for a month or something. 
My weekend totally got away from me, and it started on Friday. The wife had a cyst removed from her head Friday morning, so luckily I was able to work from home and keep an eye on her the rest of the day. Then I started working on my major landscape project Saturday morning. I've got this back yard that slopes off really hard down to the house behind us -
I spent the majority of Saturday clearing out the world's biggest blackberry infestation, and finally got it to a point where you could see down to the house behind us -
it was so thick you couldn't see that house at all. My long-term goal here is to terrace it off in some manner to create a veggie garden. But now I'm at a point where I need to get on it before the blackberries and other weeds just take over. We have a major problem with "fireweed" in these parts -
Don't get me wrong, they are kind of pretty and hummingbirds and butterflies love them. But they can take over a freshly disturbed hillside in a matter of days.
Anyways, my bench is lonely. I miss it. But I just can't seem to get back to it. Also, my veggies aren't sprouting very quickly and I'm finding this gardening thing way more difficult than I feel like it should be. If anyone needs a lesson in humility, try growing veggies from seed.
My weekend totally got away from me, and it started on Friday. The wife had a cyst removed from her head Friday morning, so luckily I was able to work from home and keep an eye on her the rest of the day. Then I started working on my major landscape project Saturday morning. I've got this back yard that slopes off really hard down to the house behind us -
I spent the majority of Saturday clearing out the world's biggest blackberry infestation, and finally got it to a point where you could see down to the house behind us -
it was so thick you couldn't see that house at all. My long-term goal here is to terrace it off in some manner to create a veggie garden. But now I'm at a point where I need to get on it before the blackberries and other weeds just take over. We have a major problem with "fireweed" in these parts -
Don't get me wrong, they are kind of pretty and hummingbirds and butterflies love them. But they can take over a freshly disturbed hillside in a matter of days.
Anyways, my bench is lonely. I miss it. But I just can't seem to get back to it. Also, my veggies aren't sprouting very quickly and I'm finding this gardening thing way more difficult than I feel like it should be. If anyone needs a lesson in humility, try growing veggies from seed.
Man, I feel like I've been out of pocket for a month or something.
My weekend totally got away from me, and it started on Friday. The wife had a cyst removed from her head Friday morning, so luckily I was able to work from home and keep an eye on her the rest of the day. Then I started working on my major landscape project Saturday morning. I've got this back yard that slopes off really hard down to the house behind us -
View attachment 5005552
I spent the majority of Saturday clearing out the world's biggest blackberry infestation, and finally got it to a point where you could see down to the house behind us -
View attachment 5005551
it was so thick you couldn't see that house at all. My long-term goal here is to terrace it off in some manner to create a veggie garden. But now I'm at a point where I need to get on it before the blackberries and other weeds just take over. We have a major problem with "fireweed" in these parts -
View attachment 5005554 View attachment 5005553
Don't get me wrong, they are kind of pretty and hummingbirds and butterflies love them. But they can take over a freshly disturbed hillside in a matter of days.
Anyways, my bench is lonely. I miss it. But I just can't seem to get back to it. Also, my veggies aren't sprouting very quickly and I'm finding this gardening thing way more difficult than I feel like it should be. If anyone needs a lesson in humility, try growing veggies from seed.
Ugh... blackberry vines...I don't envy you that task!
Clearing the vines was one of my summer chores, growing up in NorCal... using nothing but a machete and a bad attitude...
Hope the missus is doing well! And your bench...
Yeah, oddly enough I just kind of got in a zone. I had some music playing and just kept cutting away, one by one. The neighbor down below told me that when he got back from Japan (retired military vet of Vietnam age, most of my neighborhood is) the blackberries were clear down to the corner of his house. He said it took him about two months to get his yard cleared out. It's a bit insane, but I just kept working away, little by little. Usually I would be in a much more angry mood with something like this, but this time it was very calm. Odd actually.
The misses is doing okay. She's pretty sore and tired, but she's doing okay. She says it must be healing because it itches like crazy.
The bench on the other hand, might be getting angry with me.
I feel your pain, been knee deep in kitchen renovation for months, haven’t touched a bass build since before Christmas. Happy Wife/Happy life….
