Assembling all the rest of the base pieces together, and setting it in the mobile base:

Thanks to Deb and Hannah for the continued help!

Next big milestone: building and installing the top!

Assembling the back with stretchers, mullion rails, and painted panels:

Putting together the two side/end assemblies:

Some last things to do before assembly of the base...

Cut the 3/8" drawbore pegs from cherry dowel stock; use a pencil sharpener to chamfer the ends (to make it easier for the pegs to wiggle through the offset holes)...

Final prep on the panels - sanding the outside faces, using a block plane to make some light chamfers on the edges:

Applying 3 coats of milk paint on the outside faces of the panels. Apparently this is something that Shaker craftsmen would do on the secondary woods of their benches:

Continuing on the base for the Shaker workbench...

Stopped-  and through-groove joinery on the legs, stretchers, mullions:

Making the 15 soft maple panels (with tongue and groove joinery) that will wrap around the sides and back of the base:

Using the router table to cut decorative beads on the edges of the panels:

Doing some dry test assembly and making some fine adjustments to make sure the pieces will easily fit together when we do the actual glue-up:

Next up:

Surface prep, milk-painting the panels, and the big base assembly!

With the leg mortises done, it was time to move onto making the tenons on the stretcher beams, end stretchers, and back mullions.

Test cuts, test fits, and cutting shoulders on the table saw...

Cutting the tenon cheeks for the large stretchers on the bandsaw...

Finessing the shape and size of the tenons using a chisel, block plane, and sandpaper...

Doing a dry test assembly...

That's looking like a pretty beefy base frame!

The Shaker workbench will have a pretty beefy frame, and the main joinery between the legs and rails will be mortise and tenon. Here we are getting the leg mortises cut...

First - mark the layout lines, and hog out the mortises using the Festool XL:

Then finesse the mortise walls with chisels to clean up the ridges:

Drill out the peg holes that will be used for the drawbores on the tenons that fit into the mortises...

So, this spring I have a handful of house/yard projects to get worked in between stints on the new workbench build.

Last summer late, some of the local deer re-discovered our gardens, and in one night almost completely wiped out everything that had been grown, wasting a whole season's worth of labor by Hannah. So this year, we decided to install an electric fence around both gardens to deter them from coming back.

Making up the insulator mounts and installing them on the fences, installing the polywire...

Installing the ground rod and solar fence charger...

Running underground cable from the solar charger to the fence wires...

Ready for action...

I milled up all the cherry timber-frame pieces to final dimensions for the Shaker workbench...

Jointing, planing...

Cutting to final width, length...

Gluing up some double 8/4 for the beefy legs and front and back stretchers...

Drum sanding, planing to final thickness, widths...

Arranged, sorta...

Well, the decision is in - I plan, Lord willing, to build the "Ultimate Shaker Workbench" by Fine Woodworking magazine. I will be making it a few inches deeper and will probably adjust the drawer arrangement, but basically the same plan.

I obtained some 8/4 thick cherry and 4/4 soft maple yesterday for the timber frame base and the side and back panels.

Today, I put the miter saw and table saw to work, rough-cutting the blanks for all the structural parts of the bench base. After all that cutting, there was a marked scent of cherry wood sawdust in the air!