Refinished Workbench & Ugly Casters after 20 Years

[Dick Mahany]

I've spent the last few days sanding my 20 year old workbench with an RO 90.  That little sander worked wonders getting into and around the legs and frame of the workbench.  It made relatively quick work of removing many years of glue, overspray, stains, and dings.  I didn't use it on the top as the 90mm pads would have quickly made the flatness uneven.

I wiped on a coat of Watco Oil natural finish and it smells awful.  I'm wondering if that finish has been reformulated as I can't remember it smelling so overwhelming like tung oil? 

This is a general purpose do-everything bench that I needed to mobilize, and I've always wanted to build a proper bench, possibly a Roubo.  Maybe in another 20 years [smile]  Oh and one other thing.........I've had a love/hate relationship with that tool til as it seems like any tool that I need is usually covered by a project that I'm working on and secured with bench dogs.  I'll delete that feature if I ever do another one.

[attachimg=1]

[attachimg=2]

[attachimg=3]

 

[elm]

Looks like a proper bench to me.  Put a new one on the back burner for another 20 years.  Do you have any before pics (or are you like me and forget to get those and just dive into the project)?

Agree on the smell of the finish.  I opened up some a few weeks ago and was surprised at how strong it was.

 

[peter halle]

That is beyond beautiful!  And you have the memories of projects past.  Jealous as all heck.

Peter

 

[Birdhunter]

I’ve stopped using Watco unless the wood is very porous. I’ve switched to MinWax Wipe On Poly. It is truly wipe on, flattens well, doesn’t stink, dries quickly, and is durable.

 

[Cheese]

Nice workbench... [thumbs up] [thumbs up]  With a Veritas on one end, a large Record on the other end and all that wood in between, you're good to go.  Very pretty, so after 20 years it deserves a kiss and a promise along with a sanding.

If that bench could only talk.  [smile]

 

[HarveyWildes]

Looks pretty nice to me.  If it's still functional, just give it a little love every once in while to make sure the top stays flat and everything moves the way it's supposed to.  If you do make a new bench that you like better, make sure this one finds a good home.

I've got one old bench that I made 15-20 years ago, but it's still very functional.  I just built a new one last year  The new one has an MFT hole pattern in the top and a few Veritas goodies, but no drawers or shelves yet.  Looking at both the other day, I realized that the original is an old friend with history, and it will take a while for the new one to achieve that status.  I have one granddaughter who likes woodworking, and I hope to give the older bench to her one day - it's a little shorter and I think will be just right for her.

 

[Dick Mahany]

Thank you for the kind comments.  I don't have any pictures of the before condition, but that bench was used to rebuild many Holley carburetors and had the stains to show it.  It  also had some blue Deltron Polyurethane overspray on one side from when I painted the Landcruiser and the plastic cover accidentally blew off from the spray gun.  The front had splatter stains all over the drawer fronts and legs from when a can of oil stain fell off the top and onto the floor.

A few of my woodworker purist friends shamed me into refinishing it.  I hope to give it better treatment going forward as I have changed my ways [embarassed].  The dog holes are 3/4" and I was going to enlarge them to 20mm but I have a few Veritas dogs and clamps that need the smaller diameter.  For rough duty, I'll now use my MFT since the top is relatively easy to change if it gets damaged.