Shootingboard.net

SUMMARY

This was not a “quick” project, but it was definitely worthwhile. Here’s a little summary of the project timeline:

I bought the first batch of maple back in the fall of 2004, with the intention of making a European style workbench from Woodsmith issue No 50. I bought the plans, put that wood up on the lumber rack, and there it sat for more than a year. I’m actually glad I procrastinated as long as I did, because I started not liking some things about that bench design. I kept looking around for a design I liked, and finally someone on Woodnet posted a link to that back issue of FWW Tools & Shops and I settled on that design. I procrastinated for a few more months, and finally got started on 1/1/2006. In a couple of shop sessions (within a week) I had used up all the 8/4 stock I had on hand, and construction ground to a halt… It took me a few months to buy more stock to work with (long story, DON’T ASK). Then on 4/28/06 I got more wood and got back to work. I finished everything up 2 months later, so all told by the time I’m finished I guess I will really have about 3 months of actual work invested in this. Considering it’s all spare time, I guess that’s not so bad!

Some of you may know that I drew up some plans for this project back in April, when I was still waiting for wood. I used this as an excuse to learn CAD, and in the process I ended up with a pretty decent set of plans (IMHO, of course). I figured I would post the plans as a downloadable PDF once I had a chance to verify that it was all accurate. Well, I completed the constuction and I didn’t see any errors (well, not in the plans at least). So, I uploaded the plans for all to see in the Downloads section of NCWoodworker.net. The link is here (this is only available for NCWW members). If you choose to use these plans, be aware that I am not a professional woodworker, nor am I any kind of expert at drawing up plans. You should adopt the old Ronald Reagan cold-war approach when using these plans: “Trust but Verify”. These plans are probably not the best or most organized plans you’ll find, but they’re definitely worth every penny you’ll pay for them!!!

Since I completed this project I’ve had some people ask for the total board feet required. I promised to one day add it all up, and I wanted to included it here for the sake of completeness. So… here it is for those who may be interested:

That leads to a grand total of 81 board feet in this project. Keep in mind that’s finished dimensions (going by the final dimensions listed in my plans from the downloads section). If you look at the rough thicknesses of the boards it adds up to about 98 bf. I think I actually purchased somewhere between 110-120 bf in all, and had little scrap left over.

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