The "What am I doing?" Holtzapffel Workbench #10: Back on track

I haven’t gotten a lot of work done on my bench the last couple of weeks, because I’ve been futzing with the new tools I bought. I found a cheap little table saw, a nice bench sander, and a craptastic router and semi-decent router table on craigslist. So instead of working on the actual project, I’ve been trying to get the tools in decent working order so I can use them.

Gave up on the router and bought a decent Craftsman with dual bases. I love that thing. Why have I never discovered routers before?

And, now that I’ve got a nice router, and made the jig for it, I finally got going on the tenons on the bench legs.

Not too shabby!

Can you spot the hand-sawn tenon? :P

So I did one complete tenon with the router and the jig, and then went back and cleaned up the hand-sawn one with the router. I had also cut and glued up the pieces for the other two legs last weekend. I need to get those planed and square before I can cut the tenons on them, though.

But two legs with nice tenons after tonight’s efforts. And that included a trip to the borg for a sheet of acrylic to use as an oversize base plate on the jig.

Have a 3 day weekend coming up, so I’m hoping to start on the stretchers. It’s coming together, slowly!

And here’s a couple more pictures. You guys like pictures, right?
One shoulder ended up a little deeper than the other, but that’s ok. I can custom fit the mortises.

Another comparison between the routed and hand-sawn:

-- A woman's work is never done-but power tools help!