It's that time again. Time to unbury the workbench.  I don't get to do much woodworking
any more but the bench gets used on a daily basis for cleaning and restoration of old tools.
 This is kinda like a once every 3 or 4 years type project. (The last time it was completely
clean was Dec 11, 2005.  Click on the pictures to see them in all their full beauty...yeah right

First the start (well almost) on Nov 18, 2008




I had already cleaned off about 6" of pile on the right hand side when I
decided to try and document this process.

December 1 2008


21 1/4" cleaned off as of this date.  One of these days I really need to straighten out the end cut
on the top and bring the front board flush with the end.  The bench top needs to be flattened as
well, it bowed up in the center over the years a bit but that will have to wait for another day and time.

Dec 7, 2008


Well today's progress is one of those good news/bad news kinda deals.  The good news is that I'm
making progress in the center pile area.  The bad news is that I'm having to use some of the
previously  cleaned off space for sorting.  I have a number of wooden planes that for one reason or
another I started working on and never finished up.  So I'm matching up planes, irons and wedges.

Dec 14, 2008


Almost 1 month to the day since I started this mess.  It don't look like it's going anywhere fast but I
 am making progress.  There is daylight a showing in the center and the pile on the far left is slowly
going down.  I've been working on some of the items on the right side as well.  I now am back in
possession of all three of my mallet's, all three of my split nut turnscrews for saws, and more files
than I ever remember having pulled off the shelf.  But that's okay. They won't go to waste


Dec 21, 2008




The news of the day, it is FINISHED! Cleaned completely from one end to the other.  Swept off,
scraped off most of the wax, glue and who knows what, build-up, shop vac'd to get the dust off
and out of the cracks and crevises, and wiped down with a handfull of wet paper towels.  I did
 add this week a block for holding bits, small punches, couple of small chisels etc.  That showed up
here  full of leather stamping tools but I figured nobody would want to pay to ship a hunk of
 pressure treated 3 x 3 with a bunch of holes in it, so I kept it to use.  I wiped it down with stain and
 added that piece of 1 x 3 to the back just to fasten it to the bench top.  It would probably come off
 with a real hard impact but for normal, day to day bumps, it will be fine.

So that's the end of that tale.  At least I have a place to work on stuff again, for a while....

Next on the agenda