the workbench

a slab of holm oak four inches thick, on legs square-tenoned into the top. it has been planed flat seven times in its life; on the eighth flattening it will be retired. you can see the work it has done in the way one corner has darkened to a kind of cherry.

the leg-vice at the west end holds a board still while the plane walks the length of it. three dog-holes accept pegs to stop work sliding away. it stands under the high window, so the light falls along the scribed line and not across it.

field-note · the bench is the most important tool. all the others are interlocutors.

everything else in this room is brought to the bench: chisels, clamps, the brace, the stone.