We may receive a commission when you use our affiliate links. However, this does not impact our recommendations.
I’m in the middle of building a bench for the shop. I’ve milled the legs from 8″-diameter posts down to 5″ square. They are really old and heavy. They have beautiful color and grain patterns. I’ve got four of them cut down to 36″ in length. That won’t be my final length, but it gives me some room to play, depending on the top I choose.
For the last couple days, I’ve been playing around with ideas for the feet. I know – benches don’t have feet! But I’ve never cared for the way most benches have a straight block of wood going right into the floor. It looks so chunky to my eye – as if the legs are unresolved.
So I’ve been cutting some prototypes out on the 14″ band saw. I’ve been varying the degree of the cuts to see what kind of patterns I can expect for the grain of the wood and trying different profiles. I find the band saw to be the most fun of all the tools in the shop because it allows me to make some quick sketches. And you don’t even need to have a lot of scrap wood on hand. In the past, I’ve glued up some of those rigid pink insulation panels that you will find thrown away on construction sites.
• Check out ShopWoodworking.com for “The New Complete Guide to the Band Saw.“
