Although I'm just helping out on this project (where I can) and living vicariously through the rest of the process, I figured I'd post an update on the progress of my friend Patrick's workbench.

He got the legs mortised into the top, and today we flipped the top over and set it in place. Next he'll move onto flattening it, bench dog holes, etc. 

Picture is below...

My friend Patrick is building a Roubo-style workbench.. He and I saw-milled out six large Southern Yellow Pine timbers for the bench top a few months ago and they have been air drying in his shop since. On Friday we jointed and thicknessed them all and then did the massive glue-up. The joints came together perfectly, and although we clamped them up on a less than ideal surface (sawhorses), the slab came out about as flat as we could have hoped. We let it all sit in clamps for about 24 hours and then trimmed the ends square.

The pictures below show some of the process...The last picture is the 24"x8' slab loaded up in Patrick's truck headed home for some cleanup and mortises for the legs.

As I have said before, I thoroughly enjoy it when folks come over and we work on a project together. It's some of the best time spent in the shop for me.

I'm currently learning how to build a continuous arm Windsor chair. My teacher is  Elia Bizzarri, a local chair maker who does one-on-one classes at his shop here in Chatham County, NC. He also teaches at The Woodwright's School in Pittsboro and various other places. He is a great guy & fantastic teacher, and I'm really enjoying  learning some new skills.

This kind of  woodworking is new to me. Starting with the tree, we are riving out parts from the green wood with a froe, and refining them using a series of tools (draw-knife, spokeshave, etc.) There is some turning involved with the legs and arm stumps, and the white pine seat will be shaped with another set of tools (scorp, travisher, etc.) I'm only a couple of  days in, and my way of looking at trees, wood, and hand tools has really changed. 

A couple of other  highlights so far...

• I bought a cheap draw-knife at some point a while back (I don't even remember where) that I have cleaned up, sharpened, and put to use
  
• I built myself a shave horse

Below are pictures of the shave horse coming together. It's built of pine that we milled ourselves  as well as scrap walnut from past projects. All in all I spent about $7.00 on the whole thing (for the carriage bolts, washers, etc.).

The first picture is Elia's shave horse which I used as a model. The last picture shows my rendition.

An finally some (not so good) pictures of the roughed out  spindles and turned legs for the chair.