Every good Galoot's page and many none Galoot's, has to have photos of their bench. Not wanting to break tradition and cause something bad to happen I will obey the unwritten rule. My bench, unlike most you see is not fancy, shiny nor anywhere near it. But it is practically, well used, sturdy and cheap.

My inspiration came from a now defunct web page so I can't give credit the maker. But the construction was simple and looked like it would be rock steady. Plus it was made tooby lumber. Meaning cheap and dirty. My kind of bench. I didn't want one of those benches that look like a piece of furniture. I wanted one that when I cut the top with a saw or made a dent with a chisel I didn't cry. ;-)

The corners are tooby sixes with some glue and screws to hold them together. I put some toobys with a rabbet cut in them across the top and bottom. Insert a piece of plywood and glued it in place. It's as solid as a rock! No moving when you plane on this one!

My main vice is a leg vice I picked up on Ebay. I have no idea the history of it but I like to think it belonged on the bench of an old furniture maker. I hope to be an old furniture maker myself someday too. I added a sliding deadman too. It has proved to be useful for holding long board or ever big items like a door.

The bench top is Southern Yellow Pine. Instead of using tooby four's as everyone wants to do, I recommend buying bigger boards and ripping them down. Like tooby twelves. I was told that the bigger lumber is cut first from the choice logs. By the time they get to tooby fours it cut from the small logs and smaller pieces left over from cutting the larger timbers. I don't know if this is true of not but it makes sense because the larger lumber is much better. Starting with it and ripping down to the right size yields much better wood

I started out with a single shelf under the bench and soon outgrew that. I added the drawers to the bench and like it MUCH better! As you can see the bench is cluttered and that's the way it stays most times. There is rarely a job that goes through the shop that doesn't end up on this bench.