Tattered Jeans & Saw Dust: A Bench Update

Short post today...to those of you who are tired of reading my ramblings you are welcome.

The bench is coming along nicely. I have the tenon on the top cut so that I can add the end cap eventually.

A rather large hand cut double tenon.

I used a plow plane to establish the shoulders

this was more accurate for me then trying to saw the shoulders.

I then used a 1 1/2" chisel to create the rest of the tenon.

I have also started the dog hole strip. Cutting all the dog holes by hand is a long process but a lot of fun. I start with some simple pencil layout lines. Then I knife in the lines on the top surface where the cut will be visible on the finished bench. I then use a chisel to make a first class saw cut notch (this helps create a cleaner cut line as well as guide the saw. I cut the two side walls then use a chisel to waste out most of the material. I finish off with a router plane to achieve a uniform depth.

I am now about half way through the dog hole strip. Once I get the remaining dog holes knocked out I will glue on the backer and then glue the whole piece to the rest of the top.

And now because it has been a long time since I posted some random pictures here are more from my travel to Italy a few years ago.