I made a low Roman bench out of a piece of bowling alley that was being trashed and some old fence posts. I fitted the legs with slanted mortise and tenon joints and realized that was a lot of work, so I did the other side with bored out round mortise and tenons, which was somewhat easier. There is a notch in place of a full vice, and I mad e a “crochet hook” attachment for wedging up large boards for edge planing, but it split so I’ll need to figure out a different grain direction.

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I also made a new joiners mallet. My other one’s handle broke because it was pretty soft. The head is a chunk of 3” thick red maple that I’ll use to make my full-sized bench top, and the handle is something dense (oak?). I had to slim down the end of the handle so it would fit through the head. I cut the curve of the handle by cross-cutting lines and then chunking them off with a hatchet and smoothing it off with a spokeshave.

I didnt have an actual mortise chisel, so I essentially had to chisel out the whole mortise. I plan to go back and clean up the fit a little better and smooth out the edges later. I’ll use both of these to make a larger bench to work with, and use the Roman bench as a sawhorse.

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  • loopy@lemm.eeOP
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    3 months ago

    Spot on. It’s my primary working surface right now and will be mostly for ripping when I have a full bench. Sitting on it, my weight provides the stability, but I can pick it up and take it outside or anywhere.

    I’ll use the joiners mallet to knock together joints and to motivate my chisel.