Macrocarpa Woodwork Workbench 

Watching you use your Makita mitre saw reminds me of why I liked my old one and the Festool replacement. It is very easy to operate the saw with your left or right hand with that handle position. A lot of saws have the handle going crossways with a safety release that has to be operated with the right thumb.

Good job

Ready to build my first workbench, Your video is very helpful. You do beautiful work! My first work bench build will be like watching a baby learn to crawl. Like your choice of sturdy clamps I also have the same Japanese saw. Showing any mistakes is a sign of maturity. Having worked in factories when younger, when a product is first made there are always issues.

What an epic bench. I can't wait to see what you make on it.

Beautiful workbench. Well done and great explanations on the build.

Bench looks awesome man, nice work bro!

Great build. Kudos to talking about and showing the mistakes. Great shop tour on TWW.

Nice workbench, thanks for making the video.

Excellent video. This will help me a lot as I build my own bench. Thank you!

Nice job on the workbench! I appreciated your humor regarding the spilling of the Danish oil! Even funnier...I randomly paused the video at 29:00. When I went to resume it I experienced a TMI moment. Dude, really? Superman?? Hahaha.

To help prevent slippage during glue up, sprinkle a few grains of salt on the glued face before clamping. The little bit of salt causes no problem later on but creates a gritty surface that don’t slide as much when clamping.

Nice thicc bench!!

Used wedge tenons in the tenon. Cut two strips in tenon on either side. Make wedges from a matching color of wood you like and glue and hammer in

Really enjoyed watching this bench getting put together. I'll be putting the feelers out for macrocarpa down here in chch, came out looking awesome. Most people I know talk about macrocarpa for their wood fires! Sacrilege!! I've subbed up too, cheers!

Nice bench bro, cool to find another kiwi having fun in his garage! I have finally got a space I can do the same! That's such a good trick using the pythag theorem like that. I have just build mine with MFT top and table saw outfeed combined. Am doing my research before I drill holes into the nice laminate haha. Appreciate your method, pretty accessible way of doing it! Nice audio too, sounds familiar, same dude as SBC?

Think of all the stuff you can stack on top of that bench!

Hey Mac, recent sub here. Great work on your bench project, looking forward to perusing your other videos. Neat find with the Carbatec jointer/thicknesser. It's definitely something I'll be considering adding when setting up the new shop in a bit. When placing the pieces for your mortises, use a 23GA pin nailer loaded with 1" pin nails, and tack the side pieces into position diagonally into the adjoining piece. Just a couple per side will do to hold them steady while the glue sets. If you do your glue up with the bottom side facing up, chances are remote that you'll run into one when drilling dogs, as they'll be situated in the bottom 1/2" of material. You could also use a piece of square stock placed in the center of your mortise as a placeholder, then use a coping saw afterwards to cut to the precise size needed. I've found that coping saws are too often overlooked amongst the arsenal of tools utilized in modern woodshops. A good quality one with quick release blades will set you back a mere $25 US on Amazon. Love the trick with the 345 triangle on hole placement as well in the doghole video. Also the salt trick works swimmingly for an easy friction add, as @gregokeefe9938 mentions below. The salt dissolves rapidly as the glue is still setting. Combined with a couple pins it will keep your pieces right where you'd like them.

Good looking bench, kudos. A couple of things though. Even with 4S lumber, milling is almost always necessary. To prevent sliding when clamping wide and/or long pieces, sprinkle some very fine saw dust on your glued surface. I keep a shaker of sanding wood dust on hands for that purpose. Avoid salt as it may modify the glue and will decrease the open time: salt is hydrophile. It would have been helpful to cut the top pieces to rough length, glue the top upside down on cauls and put the leg tenons in place, though I agree with you for a 3 part glue-up. I'd have started with the 2 parts with the mortises, like the full length + shorts + full length; repeat for the second one and be sure all is aligned and square. Then the center part can be assembled and the 2 mortised parts added easily. Cheers

Love this bench, the simplest (good) one I've seen so far. Will probably make mine out of hardwood plywood, because there's a bunch lying around (almost 5 years old tho!) Great build video, subbed :) I dont like invisible screws either, so I use dowels for alignment and to prevent pieces from sliding all over the place during glue up. No screws to deal with, tiny bit of added strength too, especially for legs/stretchers/aprons, etc. P.S. Acacia/wattle branches make fantastic dowels (and handles), nearly free of cost. I don't own a lathe, so I use the "pencil sharpener method" to turn my dowels down to size.

You could have dowelled the short pieces in so if you drilled through them when putting in dogs it would be ok.

nice bench, if you made a mortice jig that worked with a pattern bit you could also make a tenon jig to get the roundover if that helps?

For aligning the boards for glue up, wooden dowels

You could screw the short piece in and removed the screws after the glue set and plugged the screw holes.

That bench looks great ! Rather than screws, maybe consider drilling a couple of holes for dowels ? They would position the small piece and clamps would hold whilst glue hardens, no problems later if you drill through them.

Nice bench, how have you found the durability of the bench? I’m looking at building one but some have advised against using Mac as the tabletop. Any advice?

Very nice bench, Chris, and a simple design, too! I'll be building one similar to it, but the only affordable knot-free pre-surfaced wood I can find in my area is red pine so that will have to do. Yeah, that's a softwood but the dents will quickly add character to the table. I also like your router table-top surfacer jig, a la WW online. I may need that as I don't have room for a jointer/planer like yours. One tip I have seen around the net but have not tried myself yet is to sprinkle a bit of table salt onto the glued surfaces before clamp-up to prevent the pieces from sliding around so much.

Kris, which timber merchant did you use? I'm a little south of Auckland and can't seem to find a mill or merchant selling dressed macrocarpa.

For your mortise jig, instead of a big shim couldn't you have just turned both the jig and the router around? You'd ensure a centered mortise.

Nice vid, but please tell me why you need to perpetuate the American crime of calling that machine a 'jointer'. That name suggests to me that it 'Makes Joints'. What joints? In high school all those years ago (About 795), it was a 'Buzzer Planer'

Funny, I just caught your first name in this video. I’d already seen that you were “Mac’s” workshop, but didn’t put it all together until now. My name is also Chris (spelled the right way, mind you), and with my last name being McKinney, I’ve gone by Chris Mac for years as well! Kind of small world(ish), but probably not really. Anyway, glad I subscribed. I’m enjoying your videos as well as your way of presenting. Hope to see many more from you Kris with a K! 😊 🔨 🪵 🪚