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I like the finish, and how appropriate to use soap in a laundry room. Apply regularly and you'll get a nice buttery finish I should think. I do love a finish that matures with use and further applications. Oh and I love the little fella's buoyancy aids, they look like they ensure he always ends up head aloft, I presume he has the pool to go with them, bless him? 🐬

"I've had this bench in the house now for a week, and I haven't seen anyone put their shoes in it yet, except for myself." Lol, I can empathize.

My daughter lives in Sweden where it is traditional to finish hardwood floors with soap. She sanded the ash floors in the bedroom of their 1925 farmhouse back to bare wood and gave them the first soap treatment. The idea is to do it every 6 months or so. Over time, it’ll build up a healthy coat that will offer enough protection to stand up to foot traffic, plus it leaves a beautifully buttery feeling to the touch.

The low angle jack plane your using is a good tool

Super nice joinery! In regards to the soap: please do it again :-) It is most definitely a very resilient treatment. In Scandinavia it is one of the most used surface treatments for both furniture and floors. Do a thick blend of water and soap (maybe add a little white soap pigment if you like it light) give it 3-4 times and you are ready to go. The soap soaks into the surface and when you feel that the surface gets dirty, just wash it with the same type of soap. Over time it builds up and gets more and more durable, with a silky finish. We have the treatment on the family dining table (white oak) and I guarantee that the abuse from both kids and adults (red wine e.g.) can be cleaned off and the finish just gets nicer over time :-)

Really like the beveled edge vs round over. Gonna try and sneak that into our future builds, traditionally have used round overs. Great work as always!

I, too, struggle to find things in the shop, but I'm glad you got the push stick. Never used a jointer nor do I plan to, but that thing scares me. Organizing the shop is a constant battle and that becomes more difficult as you add more things to your tool kit. "A place for everything and everything in its place" as they say...

Thanks Andy for sharing. I like using a rebate as well for dovetails. What I also like is that the rebate "hides" the bottom/inside of where the pins and tails meet. Not that I want to be sloppy. But, if I push back past my knife line when removing the waste, you can't see an error on the inside.

I've had trouble with the riving knife on my tracksaw at work

If you’re looking for a new way to get a raw/unfinished wood look, try Bona Natural Seal. I’ve also heard Loba 2k Invisible is good too. They’re finishes for hardwood floors so they’ll offer more protection than soap, but also won’t change the color of the piece.

Beautiful, Andy! Amazing looking bench! 😃 Nicely done!!! Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

Andy. Awesome build. Gotta say, I really like the black n white tile that the bench sits on! In 8th grade shop class we built a similar bench. Of course we used construction grade 2x4s and butt joints. Still it was that early project that I realized I wanted to build furniture for a living. Great job man. A great memory for me as well.

Beautiful!

Very nice 👍- key with the soap finish is a lot of coats, actually gives decent protection (its waxy and oily).

Nicely done sir. Very beautiful bench.

Beautiful bench

beautiful bench. clever design

Beautiful bench. I need to learn to cut dovetails...

Andy, consider getting a mafell tracksaw. more power, thinner blade and theyre built like a tank. pricey but you'll never have to buy anything again.

Thank you for sharing your expertise

Beautiful work Andy.

It looks great.

Just a simple linseed oil finish is all it would really need to keep make the grain pop out.

Beautiful bench and great work. Just curious, why did you decide on soap instead of wax? I have never used either, just wondering what would be the difference of the two and now that you've used soap would you prefer it over wax, assuming you've used wax before.

nice!!!

As always sir your stuff is awesome.

Nice job man- very difficult to get that level of accuracy for dovetails on stock that thick, I think that rabbet is a great idea.

I've seen people use water when chiseling does it make it easier?

Looks great, you make it look easy! Ha! Happy wife happy life.

Hey so I got the larger Festool track saw when they first came out and I was really happy with it for years. Eventually I bought myself the mft-3 work table along with the extra track. I don't know if you use these yourself, but I was really pretty horrified by the quality in general. I was so impressed with the saw that I guess I expected the same out of the table. The fixture table idea is brilliant, but the damn thing is not sturdy enough to support a drink much less work! I have tried rebuilding a couple of leg systems but I've concluded it's just really not worth the trouble. I feel like I must be missing something, all my other experience with Festool is that it is quite well thought out though overpriced. I was just curious if you have used these and what your impressions were. And I suppose I'm a little picky, but how in the hell can you have a four-legged table that is able to be leveled with only one adjustable leg? I'm pretty sure physics works the same in Europe, it's not possible to level such a table. Really annoyed by how much they phoned it in when designing this. I haven't bought a single Festool products since

Don’t like that finish just add water ! It’ll likely be foamy, will clean it and be ready for a real finish next time. Always fun to experiment though, right?

Messy, what you use for finish clean up. Soap? Oorrrr ?

Could you have just used poly

Bench turned out nice, but that tile and wallpaper need to go.