The workbench is, without doubt, the most important tool in the shop.  It’s also a great first project for the new site.  It seems like in the last few years especially there are hundreds of workbench builds happening, with good reason I guess.  Everyone loves a workbench build because it’s a common tool in everyone’s shop.  We all spend a lot of time at our respective benches, so it’s natural to think about improving them, or to drool over some gorgeous Roubo bench that someones built.  In a hand tool shop especially, nearly all of the work gets done at the bench.  It’s probably the only tool that I use every time that I’m in the shop, for nearly every task; sawing, planing, jointing, finishing, etc.

I really hope not to draw out this build too much.  There are loads of excellent bench building resources available online already, so I’m not sure if I have much to add to any of them.  Plus, while the bench build is happening I’m not getting much other work done!  It’s not that I mind bench building so much, but the longer the project takes, the more the list of future projects grows.

THE CURRENT SETUP

Up until now I’ve been working on a multi-purpose bench meant for general DIY type work.  It has a 3/4″ plywood top with angled steel base, which includes drawers and a bottom shelf for storage.  I really can’t complain about it, it was a hand me down bench from a family friend and has worked very well for me for the past 6+ years.  With my focus shifting towards hand tool woodworking however, the limitations have become apparent and the need for a woodworking specific bench has become clear.  It’s much too high for hand planing, and it’s work holding capabilities are lacking.  I retro-fitted a leg vise to the front, but it’s not flush with the top, which can be problematic.  The metal base also extends around the top with a lip, preventing clamping anything to it.  The top is also pretty thin for any heavy hitting work and prevents the use of a holdfast (not to mention the drawers get in the way).

You can get the basic idea of the bench in the following picture showing the top thickness, metal construction, drawers, and retro-fitted leg vise.  Re-sawing walnut at that height was a bear!

That seems like a lot of complaining, but I do actually really like the bench and will be keeping it.  It excels at a number of tasks like storage, sharpening, assembly, and any power tool work.  The sharpening station will have a permanent home there, which will be great.  The leg vise is also sure to still get frequent use.  It’ll also be nice to have a bench for finishing.

THE IDEA PHASE

You can use almost every horizontal surface as a workbench.  A door on two sawhorses works great, an old dining room table would be fine, you can even just use the floor, as a lot of Japanese woodworkers do.  A well designed workbench, however lets you work easier and more efficient.  The workbench is the center of the shop and I spend a lot of time there, so I want to make sure that the new bench will fit me and my workflow.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with purchasing a commercial bench, there are a number of great ones out there.  I am of the opinion, however, that a craftsman should build their own bench.  This allows you to customize it to fit you, your shop, and your work, and is almost like a rite of passage.

My first step was to try and decide on a basic design.  There are full books devoted to the subject of workbench design, so there were no shortage of ideas.  I read everything I could about the different designs and have over 30 pages of notes in my shop notebook about it.

I started out fixated on the classic Roubo design:

The massive top and thick beefy legs make it a great all around design.  The construction is fairly straight forward, which was a nice selling point because I didn’t really want to spend a massive amount of time building it.  I wasn’t completely sold on the idea of another leg vise, so thought maybe I could find something more suitable and I kept looking.  After seeing Mike Siemsen’s “The Naked Woodworker” I thought maybe I didn’t even need a vise, so I became obsessed with the Nicholson workbench design:

After a bit more thought, I decided I really did want at least one vise on the bench.  I use my current leg vise quite a bit and thought it may be hard to get used to not using a vise of some sort.  The one vise that stood out to me over and over again was the shoulder vise.

Frank Klausz and Rob Cosman are two of my favorite woodworkers and they both love the shoulder vise, so I decided to give it a go.  I love that there is no screw clearance issues and the clamping pressure is directly behind the screw.  Being able to clamp tapered work is also a plus, along with the built-in planing stop.  I’m not really a big fan of the extra leg needed for this type of vise, or the complicated cross grain construction, but I like the idea.

After yet more thought and seeing the Holtzapffel bench in one of Schwarz’s workbench books, I decided to design a new bench with combinations of the things that I wanted.  The Holtzapffel is sort of a modified Roubo-esque bench, so I thought I could do something similar to meet what I thought I wanted in a bench.  As I started to design and do some research into how to incorporate a shoulder vise into a Roubo bench, I ran across this bench by David Barron.  This pretty much checks off all of the items on my wishlist and I immediately picked up a copy of the Furniture and Cabinet Making magazine that had the plans in it.

By shrinking the opening capacity of the shoulder vise, David managed to design the bench in such a way as to get rid of the need for the 5th leg.  I rarely have the need to clamp anything more than 3 or 4 inches thick, so this is perfect for me.  If I have to do something larger in the future I always have the old leg vise.  The final design and dimensions will be a little bit different, just because of the space I want to fill, but it will be more or less of the same basic design.  I’m not a big fan of tool trays, so I’m going to nix that as well, although I do have and use regularly a tool rack mounted above my current bench.  I’ll probably try to add one of these to the back of the new bench, or maybe mount one to the wall above it.

THE WOOD CHOICE

There’s a lot of information out there regarding the selection of materials for workbenches.  People seem to be strongly attached to a certain workbench material, whether it be some exotic hardwood, regular construction lumber, plywood, or some manufactured wood like MDF.  I have no such attachments, I’ve been working on plywood for years with no problems, but I really wanted to switch to some sort of solid hardwood.

I did really consider dimensional lumber, which in my neck of the woods is mainly Douglas Fir, but decided against it.  I do quite a bit of work with dimensional lumber to keep costs down, so have no problems using it, but really wanted this to be a little more unique.  The other issue was planing and jointing the construction material.  I don’t have a planer or jointer, and all the dimensional lumber available around here has the soft corners, along with being twisted, warped, or cupped.  I really didn’t want to mill 100 board feet of lumber by hand (I do enjoy hand tool work, but I have a limit!), so this was another reason against the construction lumber.  The pink tint of the DF isn’t exactly appealing in large quantities either.

With dimensional lumber out, I sought out a suitable hardwood to use.  I’m lucky enough to have a number of nice lumber yards in my area, so I’m thankfully not limited too much by availability.  Hard maple seems to be a common choice because of it’s hardness, but it was a little bit expensive for my taste.  What I finally decided on was Ash.  It’s Janka hardness rating is very close to Maple (1320 compared to 1450) and it’s nearly half the price in my area at the moment (probably due to the Emerald Ash Borer infestation sadly enough).  Maple has very dense grain, which makes it a good choice, but not worth the price for me right now.  I’ve worked with Ash a bit in the past, but never on something this large.  Some people have problems with Ash splintering a lot, but I haven’t run across this at all.  It’s always worked really well with hand tools for me.

I know roughly how long the bench is going to be, so I can estimate the amount of board feet I’ll need to be about 80.  I went ahead and picked up about 100 board feet, just to make sure I had enough.  It may seem a bit early to get all the lumber, but I have a fairly good idea of the design and amount required.  This way it can sit in the shop for a little while as the final design takes shape.  The board widths that I could get my hands on also will influence the final dimensions.  I also had the lumber yard surface the boards on three sides.  Again, I don’t have a powered planer or jointer, and want this bench to be completed sometime this year!

The following picture shows the Ash that I picked up.  The boards over 8′ were cut down to fit in the truck, which worked out well actually.  My workbench top is only going to be 5′ long, so the few boards I found that were 10′ were perfect.  You can also see my old bench in the background of this picture.  I do like the storage on that bench.

While the lumber acclimates to the shop I can work on the final design, which will be the subject of the next post.