Here's Hoping All Have A Good New Year

First post of the new year. I wanted to start the year off with a post and I'm expecting to up my output this year, not to Ralph standards but more than in the past. Of course sometimes there will be difficulties such as now, Sweet Maggie Dog is nosing my elbow followed by Sam the Wonder Dog and his very wet stuffed critter being dropped in my lap. My guess it is treat time, they usually work as a team. Treat given, all is well.

Today is piddle time in the shop, I've finished installing the lower shelf on the Moravian and now working on new wedges for the tusk tenons. The original wedges were quickies and too small. The new ones are longer and wider at the top.

Here is a photo of the new wedge and the old smaller wedge:

The new larger wedge installed:

Today's other piddle job was finishing up the lower shelf install, here is a photo:

I expect this is the last time you will see the shelf this clean and uncluttered.

I'm working on a long form essay on workbench builds.  It may never see the light of day but I would like to formalize some of the things I've learned about workbenches after many builds starting with the first I built trying to copy the photos of the benches in early issues of Fine Woodworking with no knowledge and no skills. As I have posted before it was kinda like a Russian copy of a western airplane, if you squinted it almost looked the same but that was about as close as it got. BTW that bench is still working as a shabby chic table/plant holder in the back garden.

It is early in this build's life and there is always a chance something will show up that drives me bat shit crazy, so crazy I have to build another bench to fix but the early reviews say there isn't much chance of that happening. The bench has been nothing but a joy to use. About the only thing I expect to change is the tool tray, it was a quickie to get the bench operational. It works fine but is uglier than granny panties.  

ken