A new workbench for a new process

I had plans to get at least five books done today, but life had other plans. A neighbor missed the bus to the next town so I gave him a ride. I ended up visiting a few stores while I was there and before I knew it, half of my day was gone. When I finally got home I was wiped.

I have been working on a workbench about 32 inches long by 24 inches wide for a while now. When my neighbor who is a carpenter and a craftsman himself told me he was interested in my books a light bulb went off in my head. I needed a workbench badly. Up until now I had to constantly clear whatever tool I was using to make way for the next tool in the process of my bookbinding. I essentially had one station for measuring, cutting, pasting, folding, sewing, etc. This really limited my productivity and my flow. My neighbor came knocking today and had something to show me. I followed him to his truck and he had a solid core door waiting for me.

"There's your table Jesse," he said "and let's get you the rest of your wood." He took me into his backyard and started piling on the lumber for me. I thought this would be a nice weekend project and I maybe would have it done in a week or so.

I got to work and about 3 hours later this is what I had:



See that plywood top bench in the foreground? That was my old bench. I decided to mount the new table onto the old one and made one long beautiful bench for all of my needs. I can now set up an assembly line and work my way down the stations. No more moving equipment around, a niche smooth finish that cleans up easily. Ahhh... a nice change of pace.



Here is the bench in action, I mounted on some shelving and put in a power distributor. You can see a preview of some new books I am working on. I will post those when they are done. All in all it was a very productive day.