Well, this took me forever to get done, but my workbench is finished and ready to go to work. I’m pretty excited to be able to off the old wobbly pseudo bench.
If you are a beginning woodworker, living in the San Francisco Bay Area, and want my old bench speak up now. It’s yours for a song. Litteraly., a song. Just hum a few bar of “taps”, load it into your pick up truck and take it home. I’ll even help you load it and offer my opinion on how you could make it into a more robust work bench.
After the big glue up I let the bench sit for several hours (it was hot yesterday), then cut off the wedges and planed the top flat. I installed the chop on the end vise and planed it to the level of the bench, and also planed the top of the leg vise level with the bench top. I used to be afraid of flattening the bench top, but it seriously took me longer to sharpen the blade in my #8 jointer than it did to flatten it. Having to work a nick out of the blade took the most time, but I got it razor sharp and it cut the top (knots and all) like butter.

Flat. It took about 4 passes to get it flat. one traversing directly, three cutting at a 45 degree angle. Then I made two more passes lengthwise to remove any tear out.

Finish Schedule: Mix equal parts of BLO, Poly varnish and mineral spirits, slop on, let soak in, wipe off.
What’s next? I’ll glue leather in the vise jaws, slop on more finish tomorrow (maybe) and add a shelf between the stretchers (some day). Mostly I’ll clean up the shop, and start a new project. And I’ll help *you* load up my old workbench when you come to pick it up. You know you want it.