My custom DIY watchmakers bench (pic heavy)

Shells of the cassettes come off, I locate the stiffening brace and drill some holes into the frame of the cassettes. Then tie the new small shelf into the right hand side cabinet. This small metal bracket has GREATLY stiffened everything up. Nothing moves or flexes anymore. Great idea.

I like that so much, lets make another shelf for the other side. Not sure what side the computer is going to be on yet. More options are betterer. Im starting to source parts for this Fractal Terra. Im fortuante to have a MicroCenter in town (Cincinnati).

I think I like this location better for the computer. That means I need to rewire the cassettes again and change the primary monitor to the left side and daisy chain to the right. Not a huge deal, its easy to get into. This little shelf looks so cute. AND its now tying the cassettes into the left side cabinet so its stiffer still. This is great. Very sturdy.

We're so close! Did you know you can get these Bergeon desk mats in other colors besides the classic green? I really like this charcoal color. Got it trimmed to the radius of the armrest cutouts. Looking sharp.

Arm rests are back and maaaaan they are beautiful. A nice soft forest green is a nice touch to compliment this room. They feel amazing and are easy to keep clean. Aaron managed to nail the foam and leather thickness. This is perfect.

A nice little bonus is these knobs I turned at Plumier in June. Using rose engines, reciprocators, eccentrics, and curvilinear machines was so much fun. I want to remake every knob I own now.

We're at the finish line.

This is, by far, the best thing I’ve read all week. I’m no longer angry!

Dude, excellent photos.

Just kidding. Lets make more stuff. I need a mount for my ARBE. I really hate surface mounting things. It rididly locks that tool or accessory in that location forever. I want my lights to be able to swivel and be removeable. A edge clamp provided with the light was quickly discarded. The power coard can slip through this slot and be plugged into the power outlet mounted under the top. Because power strips on my desktop ARE NOT IT.

Thanks for reading this far if you did. This is the majority of the project complete. I need to cut a hole in the floor for a surface mount outlet so I can ditch this extension cord. I have an electrician coming out in a couple weeks to run electric to a fence gate, ill have him wire a box for me for this while hes here.

Future plans:
1. I want an additional light, Just need to fabricate another swivel mount.
2. I want to clean up the wiring a little better
3. I want to add air. I have a 80gal Champion compressor in the basement, I plan on running a 1/4"OD airline to the floor mount electrical box so I can have a blower/vac on the desk.
4. trinocular scope arm mount. Havent gotten that far, but its on the list.
5. maybe add a small bead of silicone in the corner of the skirt to benchtop joint.

Im interested in your feedback. What would you do to improve this? What changes would you make? So far ergonomically it works well for me to service movements sitting down or standing up. I really enjoy it.

Cheers
Sam

Here is the fractal terra ITX build.

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Raphael AM5 4.2GHz 8-Core
Gigabyte B650I Aorus Ultra AMD AM5 Mini-ITX Motherboard
96gb DDR5 Crucial 5600
ASUS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti PRIME Overclocked Triple Fan 16GB GDDR7
Corsair SF850 power supply. Itty bitty.
2x Samsung 990 PRO 4TB Samsung V NAND TLC NAND PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe M.2
Morinaga Hi-Chew Berry Mix Fruit Chews - 3.17-oz. Bag 😋
Noctua NH-L9a-AM5 CPU cooler (pretty low profile but needed for the case size)
Noctua NF-A12X15-PWM SSO2 Bearing 120mm Case Fan
Microsoft Windows 11 Home 64-Bit
Fractal Design Terra Mini-ITX Mini Tower Computer Case - Jade

I could make a multi page thread JUST on my class I took at Plumier. What an incredible experience. If you ever have the time, please put it on your list of places to visit someday. They just moved their headquarters to Saltsburgh PA from NYC area. These are all essentially wine bottle stoppers, but it was an intro to ornamental turning.

Thank you so much! That makes me happy. Thanks for sharing my passion. I wasnt sure anyone would care to see this stuff.

Outstanding thread! As a guy who has screwed up more projects in wood and metal than I can count, I’m in awe of your vision and fabrication skills.

FWIW, I assume that you have something sort of shelf or drawer to stash that keyboard when you’re not using it?

No! I don't have a good solution for that. Thoughts? Make a little tray for it underneath?

Yeah, I used to have a little shelf underneath the work table in my home office. I need to make a better version, but it was a useful way to store the keyboard when I wasn’t using it.

Thank you so much! That makes me glad.
Omg those surface pros hahaha. I LOVED the way they felt in the store but KNEW that would be a short lived feeling. I have an alcantara wheel in my BRZ and it gets DISGUSTING if im not wearing driving gloves. So to that point... why even have it? Keep it as a headliner material.

Love that. Ill start brain storming ideas for best fit. My work trips are sometimes a full week long. I like to leave a perfectly clean desk when I leave so its perfectly clean when I get home to use it again.