The ebony is attached by a machine screw that is tapped into the brass and the ebony. This is where a bottoming tap comes in handy. Unlike a normal tap, which doesn't have complete threads towards the front end of the tool so that the tool can be started easily, the bottoming tap has threads that go all the way. It is used after the normal tap has threads established. This allows threads to be cut all the way to the bottom of the blind holes, thus making it the strongest possible. The two pieces are joined with the addition of epoxy. 
The I drilled the hole for the hammer's tenon. This is tricky because the hole must be drilled into the curved side of the brass. So I took a piece of scrap pine, drilled a 1/2" hole in it, and a perpendicular 3/8" hole that intersects the 1/2" hole. This guides the drill bit and prevents wandering. I aligned the hammer head up with hole and drilled it out. 
After letting the epoxy set, I trimmed down the ebony, using the brass rod to reference my chisels off of. I domed each face of the hammer with a file. The head gets polished to 600 grit.
The handle is black and white ebony, made into an octagon. When making an octagonal handle, it's best to rough it out with something like a block plane, and go back later with a smooth plane and clean up any tearout. Use a very thin cut, and a sharp blade. the handle is about 7" long. I formed the tenon that goes into the hammer head, and planed a taper into the top to make it look better. Then the hammer head is epoxied on, and the whole thing got three coats of shellac.
Now what's this, pills in the shop? No, it's a jojoba oil applicator made from an old pill jar and a old t-shirt. Works great, but may raise some interesting questions...
Since my wooden screw is so beat-up, I decided to use a system first shown on Jameel Abraham's Blog where the guide bar slides on two small wheels, thereby taking the load off of the screw. (He later turned this into one of his products at Benchcrafted, the Glide Leg Vise.) I used small caster wheels that I cut from swiveling casters. The first one I installed was the one behind the leg, it is not adjustable. Since my side stretcher is so low , the wheel is mortised directly into the leg. The front wheel is in a wooden bracket which allowed to adjust it up and down to achieve optimal results.
I left the chop a little long so I could trim it flush with my bench top. At first I used my LN low-angle block plane, then my Stanley #4, both with poor results. Then I used my Stanley #6, which worked perfectly. It is a very solid tool, and I think that the weight helped give it good momentum to push through the cut.
To make mine, I flattened a pine 2" x 8", and rabbeted the top, 5/8" from the front. There is a matching groove in the bottom of the benchtop that is 5/8" from the edge, and 5/8" wide. 
It is also 1/2" deep, which is the deepest my plow plane goes. This poses a slight problem, as most plans I've seen have the deadman come out by deepening the groove, and having it slide up and then over the bottom. This is why I made the tongue removable, by two screws, I didn't want the tongue to be less than 1/2" long. The bottom track is shaped like a 'v', if I had made a groove, it is likely that sawdust and shavings would have collected in the corners, and not allow the deadman to slide. 
The bottom 'v' groove was very hard to make, I chopped it out with a chisel, and other tools. 
That was the easy part, but the problem was still how to attach the top to the base. At first I planned on making through tenons, like the traditional Roubo (see this stunning specimen), but then reality set in. So I decided to make a sort of cleat system that is bolted to the underside of the bench. I have completed this, and it works very well, I made 1" long and 2" square tenons on the top of the legs, but they were probably unnecessary.
A marking knife is a simple tool- or is it? My first marking knife was an craft knife. This worked pretty good, but had an old dull blade, and was not long enough to mark in between dovetails. So then I made a marking knife that I blogged about in February. That was okay, an upgrade from the craft knife, but it had two major flaws. The first is that the tip of the blade was rounded, not pointed. At the time, I didn't realize it was that important. With a pointy blade, less of the knife has to be in the work to scribe the same depth of a cut as a rounded tip. This enables the knife to not stray from where you want to mark as much because it's less likely to follow the grain. The second flaw was that it looked terrible. Okay not that big a deal, but it annoyed me.
It's 0-1 steel and is 1/32" thick and 1 5/16" long. This is a very nice set-up, all bevels are very crisp. The blade cuts very cleanly.
The bronze ferrule is very nice too.
A good marking knife is very important in the shop; it's more accurate than a pencil, and will even help you saw straighter. I highly recommend the Kerf Kadet from Czeck Edge. It is available from Czech Edge, and Craftsman Studio.
The top is all done, dogholes are cut, and tenons are glued and pegged with 3/8" oak pegs. 
I made a lot of progress on the bench's undercarriage, the legs are mortised into the top with 1" long tenons, those blocks coming out of the top of the legs will be lag-bolted to the top. They too are mortised to the legs. 
The legs in the rear photo might look weird. That's because I goofed and on the right, I made the mortise's edge at 16" from the end (correct), but the left one was 15" (incorrect), so the stretcher was offset in order to be parallel. I bought some 2" hickory for the vises. 
I also bought some more tools, a LN 102, and these microplanes, which I used to shape this handle (which is still in progress). 
That's all for now, I am now going to focus on the wagon vise.
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