Sharpening Station – Progress Update

I made some good progress on my sharpening workbench.  Of course today I also picked up a new Fine Wordworking magazine with an article on Sharpending by Denab Puchlaski. which poings out you only need two stones and a small board to hold them and a series of stops to set the iron length in your $9 sharpening gizmo.  “blah, blah, blah…I can’t hear what your saying, I’m busy working on my sharpening bench”

I got all of the bottom tenons cut and fit to their respective mortises.  I spent some time tweaking the shoulders of the tenons to try to get a “perfect” fit into the base.  I didn’t get a perfect fit, but I got an “OK” fit.  As the wood dries I’d bet it going to move around more.  That should be interesting.  I clamped all four legs together and laid out the shoulders for the top tenon and the stretcher mortises.

Ready to Lay Out the Rest of the Leg Joinery

I sawed, chiseled and planed (and “floated”) until all four top tenons fit into their mortises.  I had a few fitment problems, that were a result of layout problems that were a result of imperfect accuracy in dimensioning the stock.  Nothing terrible though.

Both Bases, Dry Assembled

After dry fitting both bases I disassembled one. and cut the mortises for the stretchers.  Then I took some very light cleanup passes on the faces that would be inaccessible after glue-up to remove fingerprints and the odd welt from the dead blow hammer.  I sanded these same faced to 220, including the decorations in the ends of the feet and top support.  I put a light coat of shellac on the end grain decorations as a sealer, and I’ll re-sand them to 320 before I put stain on this.

Finally, I was ready to glue up one end, it went easily enough.  I should be able to get the base completed this weekend.  I still have to dimension the 4″ x 6″ that I got for the stretchers, and of course bring the other end truss up to this same level.

First End Assembly Glued Up