Workbench
It followed me home
At the start of this project I didn’t have any sort of woodworking shop set up. Most of my tools were in the garage, so I was thinking of clearing a spot in the basement for a bench and gradually shifting some things down there. Probably just make a basic work table for now and then upgrade as needed. But then this popped up for sale in the surrounding area and, well, I was very interested. Great looking vintage woodworking bench, two wooden screw vises, used but not abused, something funky with one of the legs but I need to know more. I contact the owner, she’s very nice, I go out to look at it. It’s very cool – fairly large, one of the vises is stuck, and the right front leg looks like the end rotted so its been sistered with a 2 x 4. The base looks like someone may have substituted a chest of drawers for the the original, so I wonder how sturdy it is. We have a great conversation, this is part of her father’s or grandfather’s shop, it’s very compelling but somehow I talk myself out of it. Part of my reservation is that I’ve worked full time at a bench before, and while vintage woodworking items are very romantic, they’re not always practical (there’s a reason there are no more wooden vise screws). So I know this is more of a showpiece than an everyday bench. It’s amazing but a bit of a project and I’m trying to limit my scope creep, so reluctantly I take a pass, patting myself on the back for my new found practicality and iron willed discipline.
Alas, the romantic dies hard. I try to dismiss it but it keeps popping into my head. I check periodically to see if someone has put me out of my misery, but it remains available. After several months, I can’t stand it anymore and go and get it.
I borrow a friend’s pickup, it’s raining, but I’m able to tarp most of it so it doesn’t get soaked.
The top is pretty heavy so it goes down to the basement in two pieces. I start to go over it. The stuck tail vise loosens up without much of a fight, but the front vise is loose, something needs adjustment. There is no manufacturer that I can see, but there is very faint writing in crayon under the top that says: “Starr Piano Co., Richmond In”. 
Richmond is not far from where I picked it up – so I look up the Starr Piano Company…
The Starr Piano Company started in 1884 and seems to have closed in the 1950’s (more details at right). I’d love to get an idea of how old the bench is but it has no other identifying marks. It has wood screw vises and hand cut dovetails, and these eventually gave way to metal vises and machine cut dovetails around 1900, so I’d guess that it wouldn’t be later than the 1910’s? Apparently it was fairly common for a manufacturing company this size to make its own workbenches, and since they were building pianos, a few workbenches wouldn’t have phased them. Workbenches from this era vary a lot in build quality but both the top and the base are well thought out and nicely executed. The vises in particular have some attractive details, like molding and dovetails.
It has a tool tray in the back that has been filled in which is fine, I like the larger work surface that provides. And it is really covered in what appears to be shellac, varnish and paint, so it has seen some finishing work at some point, who knows if it was at Starr or afterwards. It does need some work but is serviceable as is. The patina is great but a little chunky, so it’s definitely a candidate for restoration down the line. But it’s a great to have a workbench from the music industry added to the project, I need all the help I can get.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
According to the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana:
The Starr Piano Company began as the Trayser Piano Co. in 1872. One if its founders was James Starr. In 1878, the company was reorganized as the Chase Piano Company, and Benjamin Starr joined his brother James in the business. In 1884 they bought 23 acres in the Whitewater Valley gorge and constructed a six-story factory powered by the river. In 1893 it became the Starr Piano Company, and it soon became a sprawling complex of buildings and lumber yards and one of the biggest employers in Richmond.
By the 1920s, it was manufactuing not only pianos but phonographs, and, to go with the phonographs it began producing records. The Gennett Records Division of Starr Piano recorded artists of early jazz, blues, and country. Because these were new music forms in the 1920s the large record companies did not record them at all, so the records produced during this time constitute the earliest recorded examples of these forms. Artists such as Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Hoagy Carmichael, and Bix Beiderbecke performed in the studio in the Whitewater gorge.
Declining record sales and the Depression ended Gennett Records, and the Starr name continued for a few more years making radio cabinets and refrigerators. The complex fell into disrepair and in the 1970s demolition reduced it to a few structures — the smokestack and the shell of the building that still bears the shadow of the Gennett Records logo.
