When I found a huge slab of Ash this January, and began to think about building a new bench, I thought a good deal about the Dominy family of woodworkers. The Dominys, beginning with Nathaniel, worked on Long Island from around 1716 until the early 19th century and, by happenstance, their workshop survived intact, tools and all, until it was purchased by Winterthur museum during the 1940s. Their main workbench is a massive oak slab 16 feet long, with legs tenoned into it like the posts of a house. They built clock cases and tea tables, planed unthinkable miles of boards on it. At one end of the bench, a massive vise is wide enough to acomodate the seats of the windsor chairs they made. The bench looks exactly as if it had been beaten with a century of continuous work.
Nathaniel Dominy's bench is essentially utilitarian. Every moment spent to build it was stolen from the completion of orders and the making of a living. The same thoughts crossed my mind as I built my own new bench this Winter. Still, though, it was hard not to polish something that seemed so lasting and monumental. I found myself planing out the last of the saw marks, striking a bead onto the stretchers.
And so, this week, I was shaping the underside of a table top. This is axe-work - hewing the wide bevels that define the thin edge of the top. Half-way through, the blade glanced outward and straight into the bench. I winced, but that's how you get to be like the Dominy bench.
Nathaniel Dominy's bench is essentially utilitarian. Every moment spent to build it was stolen from the completion of orders and the making of a living. The same thoughts crossed my mind as I built my own new bench this Winter. Still, though, it was hard not to polish something that seemed so lasting and monumental. I found myself planing out the last of the saw marks, striking a bead onto the stretchers.