Crafting a workbench in real life.

For a long time my inner cave man has wanted to attend a bush-craft furniture course. But I’ve never really found one that was perfect for me. But luck would have it that the wife and I went to sweden with her family. Out of the blue my brother-in-law challenged me to a furniture building competition.

Saw Battle

We started out with a little sawing competition which was a little intense. In the heat of the sawing-battle I had to do the anime-move of going shirtless for more power (it was also like 29 degrees Celsius). Sudden shirtless final battle

What am I even doing?

I did not really know what it was going to be, but I just had an idea of the tools I’d like to use and the joints I’d like to try to make. I also really wanted to try splitting a big log that was left behind by a logging company. I wanted to do a drilled joints and some very simple wedged joints. I wanted to use a hand drill, axes, some big saws, axes, some iron and wooden wedges, a super big metal hammer and a beautiful (super dusty) stanley plane. This is how happy I am when building stuff with cool tools

The work bench

Initially I was trying to build something where we could rest our campfire utensils and food on when grilling. But after surprising myself by building something sturdy, I realized I had built a bench.

I was soo much work drilling holes in all the wood pieces with a hand drill. I got super sore in my chest from leaning on the drill when drilling though the bigger logs. It probably did not help that it was a rusty and somewhat dull drill bit. I also learned (rather quickly) that I needed some non-gripping fabric when using the hand drill, as the handle did not rotate. Don’t know if it is supposed to.

I also set a rule for myself, that I was not allowed to use any nails or screws, but instead had to resort only to wood.

Below you can see the some of the joints I made. I made use of wedges quite a lot, as I was positively surprised by the strength.

Super strong wedge joint, like look at it. It is in there.

I also discovered that one of the main branches were broken slightly. But I fixed it by drilling though it and adding a “dowel” and fastening further with rope. It seemed to be enough to be able to support my weight. You can see the slit right on the left side of the of the stick.