Workbench Build, Giant Log, Barn Power – Aug 2023 Update

Welcome to my shop! I thought for this week’s video, I would give you a bit of an update on what’s going on in the shop, upstairs in the house, and also outside in the barn.

Here’s what’s on my bench: a new workbench! A lot of you have asked to see a build of a workbench using the workbench kits that I produced. Luckily, my editor and sometimes videographer Brad needed a new workbench. So we are building him a new bench, which is exciting and cool. 

Last time I had him here to film, we got started on the build. Brad wanted something that had a lot of visual interest, so we found him a pair of slabs that had a bunch of figure, some spalting, and some bark inclusions. Because the bench tops are a single piece instead of a glue-up, we had fully surfaced tops in half a day, which is kind of unheard of for building a bench. 

Here is the base dry assembled. It’s made out of single pieces as well, so it come out of 4x6s. Making the base is nice because it involves joinery and woodworking. And with these pieces being so big and the mortise and tenon being so large, everything has to be dead-on square

Here’s the bench with the tops sitting on top, just so you can get a feel for the look of it. The tops are still over length at this point, and they will get chopped down to final length once they’re attached to the base. But as you can see, these have a lot of nice figure and visual interest, and Brad is super happy with the look of this bench. 

In terms of vises, Brad has a DIY leg vise in mind for below, and we will use one of Andy Klein’s twin turbo vises for the end vise. The videos for this build will start coming out sometime in September. I am also getting ready to produce another batch of workbench kits this fall, and I also have four kits available right now.

Now for an update on the renovation. In the last couple of episodes of the renovation, I’ve milled all of the trim work, and then Donavan and I made all of these window units for the great room and the office downstairs. I just wrapped up painting the trim, got it all installed, and painted the walls. The last thing to do in here is paint the ceiling, and then this room is done! Once this room is done, I’ll start working on the cabinets for the kitchen. 

Next up: a lot of you had questions about this log when I posted a video moving it to this spot. This log came from my buddy Austin, down in St. Charles, Minnesota. It is from a removal that he did, and it’s too big for him to even want to think about dealing with. So he offered it to me, and it became my problem instead. This thing is six foot in diameter on one end and splays to a little over eight feet at the crotch. This is a silver maple, and I usually prefer to let them sit for about two years, because they change color to more of a reddish-orange, blue-purple color. 

Now, onto barn things: we finally got the transformer for the barn. The power company came out and set the transformer and ran a line all the way to the road back in June. They are coming later this month to get the meter socket on the barn and get the barn connected to the transformer. I will be very excited to get real power out there. 

Lastly, I have a couple updates on the chair kits. For a long time, people have been asking to be able to order just one or two chairs, so you can now order whatever quantity of chair kits you want. 

And the other announcement with the chair kits is that I am almost done with the plans for style three. So if you want to make one of these yourself in your shop, I will have the plans available very soon. I’m starting with style three because it’s the most popular, but if the plans are well received, I will release plans for more of the styles in the future. 

So those are some quick updates on what’s been going on around here! Thank you as always for joining, I greatly appreciate it. If you have any questions or comments on anything, please feel free to leave me a comment. As always, I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have. And until next time, happy woodworking!