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Are you doing each piece one at a time? I’ve noticed it goes quicker if I work a project as a whole. Get all the wood I’ll need preped first. Make a cut list and do all my cuts at once. Do all the lay out. Cut all the mortises at once. Cut all the tenons etc. like a small assembly line. This way I spend less time bouncing around and I’m not sharpening every tool I have every day. If you notice in Paul’s videos he usually has all his stock rough cut and ready to go.
The entire bottom doesn’t need to be perfect, only where the legs attach. The middle of the bottom can be all out of wack and won’t effect much. In reality even if the bottom is completely out, you could make adjustments with the leg lengths to fix it and then just flatten the top. I would plane the laminations until you can clamp out the gaps.
I used 2″x10″ southern yellow pine. I ripped an 1/8 inch off each edge on the table saw and then ripped each in half and used that to build my bench.
I chose this way because the 2″x10″ at this store were over a year old and a lot straiter than anything else they had. I’m guessing they don’t sell a lot of them.One of my biggest lessons came as I was building my bench. While laying out the mortise holes for the legs I did not use the same face to register my gauge and I was 1/2″ off center. As I cut the mortise I noticed that it only broke thru on one side. Took me a minute to figure out what I did. I decided to flip the piece over cut two pieces to fit the holes and left it as a reminder of the importance of working accuratly. The “mistake” is on the back leg of my bench and only I know it’s their but sometimes I see it and smile, thinking about how far I have come.
Nice dove tails. I agree with what someone else said. Turn your practice into projects. I have a bunch of boxes in my shop that I use to hold different stuff and junk. Most were made with scrap wood and even some pallet wood. I can look at them and see how far I have progressed. Something about knowing it is a project gets you in the mindset to do better work and everyone needs storage in their shop.
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