Sjoberg tool well

The shop owner had kindly lent me one of her old benches until I could (eventually) my own.

I didn't like the tool well. I didn't like losing that table space, and stuff just accumulated in it. Working on moderately sized pieces meant running out of space.

I didn't want to make any destructive changes, but the wall and well could both be removed. My first thought was to fill it with hard maple - I had plenty, and the added weight to the bench would be appreciated.

Sawing five feet of maple down with my present work holding would have been tedious at best and probably dangerous as worse. So first I needed a make Saw Bench v0.

Once that was sorted, I cut down all that maple and realized it was too warped to use easily. It was possible I could clamp it well enough for it to hold, but it seemed dubious. I should have noticed this before cutting 1-3" off five boards of hard maple, but at least it was a good workout.

Back to pine 2x4s it was.

I had also acquired a Stanley no7, making squaring up the boards much easier.

After planing it down, I had a couple gaps in the glue-up. I wasn't going to fix it by hand, and it probably would have only annoyed me periodically. The shop owner - much more of a perfectionist than I am - took it over to the table saw and cut out the gap, then cut a strip to fill it with.

With that sorted I went about disassembling the tool well and installing the cap.

I'd had some idea for this gap - it was actually intentional! A tool holder or something, but those Last 5% Blues got me, and I just filled it with a block and haven't thought about it since.