Apparently we are contractually obligated to post a thread here when we build a workbench. It's in the fine print somewhere :D.
I've been the past year and a half without a workbench since I started re-doing the interior of the garage. The old bench was made from angle iron and old doors and was cemented into a moving slab and bolted on to a shifting wall and was about as far from a flat, useable surface as it is possible to get. So I pulled it out and turned it into shelves, which are much more useful (and full).
_IGP6392.jpg
Anyway, after over a year of using the top of the table saw and a piece of plywood on sawhorses, I started building the bench in January. I had meant to start a lot earlier (I had got the vice hardware in Christmas 2012), but stuff and available time had gotten in the way. After a year of thinking and planning and some serious thinking about what sort of things I was likely to build, I decided on the following features I wanted/needed:
My main sources of inspiration (apart from looking at all the other builds on this forum) came from Chris Schwartz's The Workbench Design Book, Jord's Woodshop Roubo Build series of videos (I also bought his sketchup plans for the princely sum of $5 - They particularly helped crystallize how to put together the base) and the 100th issue of Australian Woodsmith which had a bench build that had a lot of the features I wanted (but I'm doing the l-vise totally differently - more like the tail vise by Mr. Carter on youtube.).
I've been the past year and a half without a workbench since I started re-doing the interior of the garage. The old bench was made from angle iron and old doors and was cemented into a moving slab and bolted on to a shifting wall and was about as far from a flat, useable surface as it is possible to get. So I pulled it out and turned it into shelves, which are much more useful (and full).
_IGP6392.jpg
Anyway, after over a year of using the top of the table saw and a piece of plywood on sawhorses, I started building the bench in January. I had meant to start a lot earlier (I had got the vice hardware in Christmas 2012), but stuff and available time had gotten in the way. After a year of thinking and planning and some serious thinking about what sort of things I was likely to build, I decided on the following features I wanted/needed:
- made of either cheap recycled timber, or construction pine. In the end I went for construction pine, not only because it was about $50 cheaper, but I am making the bench with mostly hand-tools. I don't have a jointer or thicknesser, so it is all being done with handplanes. Also, I like the idea of the bench being made of more forgiving wood that gets dinged, rather than the piece I'm working on.
- A thick (80-100mm) top.
- legs flush with the front of the bench and the stretchers as well
- an l-shaped end vise
- a leg vise
- I was agnostic about whether to go for a split-top or a solid top, but decided on a solid top as I saw a split top adding an extra layer of complexity and cost (for the filler wood to make the saw/chisel till/planing stop)
- make it left-handed. This was actually really hard for me to picture as I had seen thousands of images of RHS benches, but only a handful of LHS ones. I'm ok now, but at the start I had to keep double-checking I had everything in the correct orientation.
- needs to be able to hold wood up to 2m long. I'm sort of hoping it can do that. I made it with a 1.9m top, but with the L-vise extended I'll be theoretically able to hold up to 2.4 m between dogs. (we'll see. I haven't built the vise yet)
- round dog holes. I'm planning on using holdfasts as well and using the dog holes for things other than just pinching boards, so round is more versatile (and a lot easier to make or add later)
- about 90 cm high. I've read Chris Schwartz, I've read Paul Sellers, I've read pretty much every opinion there is on bench height, and in the end I chose a height I've used before for planing, that feels good and doesn't hurt my back when not planing. If I want to have a lower bench, I'll stand on something.
My main sources of inspiration (apart from looking at all the other builds on this forum) came from Chris Schwartz's The Workbench Design Book, Jord's Woodshop Roubo Build series of videos (I also bought his sketchup plans for the princely sum of $5 - They particularly helped crystallize how to put together the base) and the 100th issue of Australian Woodsmith which had a bench build that had a lot of the features I wanted (but I'm doing the l-vise totally differently - more like the tail vise by Mr. Carter on youtube.).
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