Workbench Wednesday – Gunsmith Partner’s Bench Complete
(ascending soap box) The final tasks for the completion of the gunsmith’s partner bench have now been accomplished and the beast is awaiting delivery this weekend, provided the client can make it back from riot-duty in Richmond. I am hoping for his safe return and for the rioters to spend the rest of their lives in prison. Peaceful protests and redress of grievances are grand and glorious freedoms, rioting is barbarous nihilism, arson, and theft. Words have meanings, and “peaceful assembly” is not what we have been seeing these past several days. We have been witnessing the sowing of seeds of the wind, only time will tell if we reap the whirlwind. (descending from soap box)
My first task in this home stretch work was to replace any of the modern decking screws I had left visible in the bench when first putting it together months ago. These screws were removed and replaced with counter-sunk 3-inch #14 slotted flat head wood screws from Blacksmith Bolt. If I recall correctly this task involved only twelve screws I had used to fasten the end aprons to the legs, but the logistics were a challenge in the tight quarters.
I added additional screws at the edge of the top, tying those boards into the apron more securely. With that corner secured I could complete the planing of the edges of the top boards to be flush with the apron face. I almost always construct Nicholson benches with the top boards projecting over the apron by at least 1/16″ after initial assembly to allow me to plane the edges flush as with this one. I also hand planed the entire apron as there were some excessive chatter marks from the mill.
Having established the crisp corner of the top and apron, the leg vise was finally finished with the rear block installed with vintage square-head lag bolts, protruding above the bench top thus turning it into something kin to a carver’s vise. Which in fact it will be as the primary activity will be the shaping and fabricating of replica frontier long-rifles. I had already chopped the through-mortise for the parallel guide through the leg based on the mortise already present in the re-used vise jaw. It is unlikely that the jaw will ever be opened more than 4″ but it is ready if the need for a full opening presents itself. I suspect the faces of the vise will be leather lined at some point, but that is for the user to decide.
Diagonal to the leg vise I installed the twin screw face vise. Given the “partner’s bench” design of the workbench this will allow two gunsmiths to work at the same time.
A few holes for holdfasts, especially for the clamping of the portable Moxon vises, and the bench was finished.
It will be grand to have that space freed up, as this was the largest thing I have built there since making the giant arched window frame many years ago.
That’s a lovely bench. I’m sure your friend will love it, and get many years of joy from it.
Thank you for sharing this bench, and all of your knowledge. I know sometimes blogging can feel like talking to an abyss. Know that it is not.
Soapbox mode:
(I know we disagree in many ways. I believe you to be a part of the honest opposition working in good faith to make our country better. Neither of us, nor anyone, has a monopoly on the Truth.)
It’s all too easy to tar both the protestors and law enforcement by the actions of a few bad apples. I deplore both the civilian, and police rioters.
Thankfully the bad actors are a small percentage of both the protesters, _and_ the protectors of civil society.
It’s worth considering who’s been ostensibly trained and educated in how to behave. With power must come greater scrutiny, and higher standards. The punishment for a policeman/agent of the state committing a crime _must_ be more severe than for a simple citizen. And for a politician. And for a man of the cloth.
We’re reaping the whirlwind of decades and centuries of holding our public servants to lower standards, if any standards at all. I hope we learn, and grow from this era.
I fear the nihilism, bad faith, and tribalism of our current leaders will find a way to avoid the hard work of finding justice, and realizing the ideals of 30, 610, 1776, 1789, 1864, 1968, and every year.
I think there are a great many parallels between the current protests and those of our Revolutionary forebearers. We have not lived up to their ideals. Our society does not believe in “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” for all our citizens. We do not treat all lives as the children and gifts from God.
This failure, in a citizen, is sad. That failure in our police, congressmen, presidents, teachers and leaders is an abomination and must be railed against. Our society has failed repeatedly and abhorrently.
While it’s not monotonic, I believe the path of our nation is towards justice, freedom and love for one another. I know you are helping in your way. And I, in mine. And I trust your gunsmith friend is doing his best as well.
Hope to see you again at Handworks or some future happy meeting.
Be well
Thank you, Don, for pointing out that I am not privy to your every private utterance. I have only spoken to what I have heard you say in public on this forum. While you venerate the words of the founding fathers yearly on the 4th of July, you have chosen to condemn these protests but have spoken no words to publicly condemn the death of George Floyd until I questioned you on your statements. I see this as a small step toward progress, and I commend you for proclaiming the injustice of his death.
Putting your bizarre straw man argument aside, I would argue that the ‘useful idiots’ in this case are those who consume and disseminate kooky conspiracy theories that aid and abet the oligarchs and profiteers who are looting OUR country and destroying OUR environment under the guise of ‘law’ even as we speak.
I strive not to practice violence or to condone its practice by others. I am a preacher’s kid like you, and I have internalized the message of nonviolence my whole life, but even Jesus entered the Temple in Jerusalem and overturned the tables of money changers, causing damage to property (furniture no less!) in the process, to make his radical ideas of social justice and opposition to institutionalized hypocrisy heard. I do not support looters or rioters, but I empathize with their anger and hopelessness in the face of institutionalized injustice and criminal racism.
Here is a thought experiment for you: the president of the United States, a pathetic cartoon of an immoral rich man, gasses a group of peaceful protesters, American civilians on their own soil in pursuit of their Constitutional rights, and then marches through the ensuing fray to wave a Bible around as a prop of his authority and a means to manipulate his gullible followers. This is reality. Context and motive matter, I agree, but so does PERSPECTIVE. From the perspective of those loyal to and financially invested in the British crown, the events of the Boston tea party were indeed ‘a highly coordinated insurrection’ or a ‘terrorist insurgency’. Do not think that things were so different in that time than they are today. From the perspective of George Floyd and countless others, tyranny is here. None of us are free if this persists.
I am rattling your cage, Don Williams, because you are a leader in this small pond of furniture conservation and hand tool woodworking that I care passionately about. Many look up to you as I do. You have trained most of the professionals in my field in the U.S.A., and I am grateful to you for your contributions over the years and for all that you share here to further knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of historic furniture. I eagerly await your publications and financially support your important work. I hope that Christopher Schwarz, Meghan Fitzpatrick, Freddy Roman, Roy Underhill, Nancy Hiller, Jameel and Father John Abraham, Patrick Edwards, Joshua Klein, Peter Follansbee, Peter Galbert, Jack Plane, Michele Pietryka-Pagán, Philippe Lafargue, and so many others not named but not unappreciated, if they read these pages (as I suspect at least some do) might have something to say here as well. I look up to all of you and I want to hear your voices. What is the true context of historic furniture making? What does the future of our work in this field look like? Can I hear at least one of you leaders speak up? I do not ask you to agree with me, only to hear you speak.
I recognize, Don, that you spoke from a place of appreciation for your friend’s service and concern for his well-being, and I sincerely share that appreciation and concern. I only wish to expand the scope of our appreciation and concern to all. Thank you for taking the time to engage with me here.
Hi Jonathan
Thank you for the civility and thoughtfulness of your initial and follow-up comments. These two features alone make them darned near unique on the interwebz. I partake in no “social media” and almost none of the woodworking-ish blogosphere, certainly none of the WW discussion forums, simply because at my age I cannot afford to lose any of my I.Q.
It is abundantly clear to me that in the matter at hand you and I have such fundamentally different perspectives and perceptions of reality that we do not share a lexicon, and when a language is not shared there can be no conversation. In that context, then, I am going to respectfully and congenially put that colloquy to rest.
Fortunately we have the stage of historic furniture and woodworking wherein we do share more of a common language and can thus converse, I think. I will reflect on your questions regarding historic furniture and will do my best to formulate a response worthy of the questions.
Do not be surprised if I struggle with them and contact you for further guidance in understanding the questions.
How do you contextualize your ‘soapbox statement’ with the actions of December 16, 1773? Were the actions of that day ‘barbarous nihilism, arson, and theft’? I have never heard you decry the actions of Samuel Adams and his companions during the Boston Tea Party, and I have not heard you decry the brutal murder of George Floyd while he lay handcuffed and subdued at the hands of Minneapolis police for over eight minutes. What exactly is the difference you are on your soapbox to proclaim? As a former student at ‘The Barn’ and a sentient human living on this planet who has engaged in peaceful assembly in protest of this attrocity, I trust that you will have the courage to respond to me publicly on this forum .
Thank you,
Jonathan Stevens
Hello Jonathan
Indeed you have not heard me comment about the unjust death of George Floyd because you have not been in my presence since the incident, and I presume you are not a remote mind reader. In that regard there are thousands of topics about which you have not heard me make any observations. If the policemen who engaged in this perfidy are found guilty and sentenced even to death after the most complete disclosure and adversarial review of evidence I have no problem with that.
Like you, I too have engaged in peaceful public protests advocating for my point of view on several occasions. I welcome your contributions to peaceful conversations in the public square.
As to delineations from my soapbox, there is the matter of motives-and-context. It is clear from their own words and actions The Founders were seeking liberty, freedom, and eventually a new nation built on those creeds. I see no parallels between that impetus and the motives and effects exhibited on the streets of our nation in recent days in a highly coordinated insurrection which has resulted in numerous deaths and incalculable property damage. The riot agitators are not seeking any justice or reconciliation, they are striving for destruction and the imposition of tyranny. Some of the rioters may be useful idiots fueled by anger, frustration, stupidity, chemicals, and moral confusion, but the instigators are merely a terrorist insurgency.
Here’s a thought experiment.
If you were to witness an unkempt leather-jacketed young man sprint down a sidewalk and roughly push an elderly woman to the ground, would you condemn him or praise him? If his intent were to harm and rob the woman I hope you would condemn him. If his intent was to push her out of the way of a careening automobile that would crush and kill her I hope you would praise him.
Motives matter. Context matters.