Tool time!

Some of you may or may not remember a couple of weeks when I realized (and subsequently posted on Facebook) that after 13 years and two homes here in New Braunfels where I undertook quite a few of building and remodeling projects of varying ambition, I didn't actually have a workbench with which to facilitate those various projects. Kind of a d'oh! moment for me. It was a deficiency I needed to rectify, and I did:

This is, to put it mildly, unusual for me. I always have a long queue of jobs that "need to be done" and tend to stick to them on a first-come, first-served basis. But, of course, the workbench would make so many of those easier--not to mention help tidy up the garage--that I jumped it to the head of the line. The Wife even said, as I was cutting lumber that first weekend, "When you said you were going to build a workbench, I didn't realize you meant right now." If you're curious, here is the set of plans I used, with a few minor tweaks of my own. I used a 2x4 as a backstop and made the bench top wider than the plans called for so I could double-layer the overhangs to anchor a vise on one end and a bench grinder on the other (still need to get the grinder, though). The pegboard above just seemed like a necessary addition. The "one-day" project actually took a week to complete construction, doing a little bit every evening, then several more days to apply the polyurethane and let it dry between coats. A word of warning, though--the plan instructions are not very clear in places, so trial-and-error is necessary on occasion. And I don't know what they were smoking when they calculated the cost, but unless you're one of those folks who has a lot of lumber and assorted parts stockpiled, the total cost is going to be closer to $150-200 than the absurdly low $20-100 estimate they cite.

Now Playing: Various artists Dr. Demento Show 2/28/1998
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