We recently completed another five-day workbench building class at the Maplewood Center for Common Craft. Day one consisted of chopping eight mortises through workbench legs that are nearly 4 inches thick.
Participants worked steadily for eight hours each day to complete their benches, stopping only to sharpen chisels and planes, or to watch Arien, Jacob or David demonstrate the next step in completing the project. Several participants had never chopped a mortise by hand before and were pleased with the accuracy and possibility of building their own bench with such simple hand tools.
Here is a video of Logan our faithful workshop assistant chopping a mortise on the demo bench (This workbench is for sale at a reduced rate so please contact us if you are interested).
And another video of Arien showing how to use a combination square to check the accuracy of a hand-cut mortise.
All benches were fitted with a 9″ Quick Release Vise from Lee Valley Tools. It was rewarding to see the participants leave the shop with their newly made benches and a greatly increased confidence in working wood with hand tools.
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