Workbench

wow. That sure is pretty!!! I’d have a hard time doing woodworking on it!! Very lovely.

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

That’s a great looking bench. You should be proud of building such a fine bench.

-- Jesus is Lord!

What beautiful bench!!!

Heck I’d build some tall chairs and wa-la, you have a very cool dining table!!

Jimmy

-- Jimmy

Thanks. I might just break it in with a candlelight dinner. Need to thank my wife for allowing me so much time in the shop to work on it… then it’s time to relentlessly beating the *#%$ out of it every day to see how much it can take! (the bench, not the wife) ;)

Beautiful. Simply beautiful. Thank you for sharing. I agree, you should have a great meal on it. Then make something just as beautiful using it, but take pictures along the way.

Fantastic!

-- Paul, Texas

It is a masterpiece!

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

Just two comments—

1. It looks GREAT! You should be quite proud.

2. I am not sure if the bench is in your kitchen, shop or somewhere else. But WOW! IT is clean. I am very impressed.

Take care-

-- Dom, How many Bs are in Babar?

Awesome!!! I love the attention to detail…

-- Sawhorse - Sulphur Springs, TX - www.sawhorseworkshop.com

Nice work! It makes my new benchtop look shabby by comparison. I love the dovetailed details. Is the Veritas double-vise as good as they say?

-- Robert from Raymond, MS. "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is therefore not a practice, but a habit." - Aristotle

I love quality workbenches. I’m hoping to get Christopher Schwarz’s new book on workbenches as soon as it comes out. It is due out in Oct. It looks like something that would be right up your alley.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

Now you’ll have to build one you don’t mind scratching. That’s an impressive piece of craftmanship.

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

A Work of Art! Nothing is as satisfiying as completing a workbench, especially one this nice! Congradulations, Beautiful work!

-- The Gnarly Wood Shoppe

beautiful workbench and thats just wrong to describe a worbench like that. Tuff, rugged, well built, anything but beautiful. But it sure is. maybe its those other things too. jockmike

-- Mike. Profisher50@yahoo.com

A beautiful workbench, and combination dining table! Of course you better watch your knees around the vise handles….

-- Bill, Turlock California, http://www.brookswoodworks.com

You’re right, that’s a great looking workbench. Thanks for sharing!!!!

-- Straight grains & sharp blades

Great bench. Love the vises. I am looking at starting one very similar (I am going to put storage underneath) in the very near future.

Thanks for the inspiration and enjoy working on that bench.

-- -- Rob Hix, King George, VA

you could take a pix of you having your candlelight dinner at it and tell people that you just didn’t like it in the dining room and decided to throw it into the shop and just use it for a workbench instead ;)

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

The twinscrew vise wasn’t as fussy to put on as I had read, but I can see where it would be easy to screw up. If you get one, be sure to read the directions (gasp!) thoroughly before you start putting things together. There are a few pointers in there that can be helpful. I miscalculated the placement of my dog holes and wound up not leaving myself enough overhang on that end of the bench for the screws to wind in all the way. I had to counterbore a couple of recesses in the base to give the screws clearance because moving the top less than 4” in the direction I needed to would have made a row of bench dog holes unuseable. Moving it 4” or more would have made my front vise a no-go.

Other than that, I ran into one other head-scratcher with the twin screw. When I first tried to do the final install of the vise, I installed the screw flanges/nuts with the top in place. Then when I put the vise in, the screws were winding home lower than they were originally. I finally tried flipping the top upside down to uninstall and reinstall the flanges. Then I flipped it back over to put the vise in place. That did the trick.

What a beautiful bench…I’ve been drooling over the idea of building something like this someday…...I guess I need a shop it will fit in 1st…:)

As for the dining table….built in nut crackers…

-- Bob, Carver Massachusetts, Sawdust Maker http://www.capecodbaychallenge.org

Ah, then those round holes must be candle stick holders. : ^ )

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

Nice work…beautiful bench. I think it’s too nice to use in the shop leave it in the kitchen to eat off.

-- DocK, WV

Great Looking Bench!

-- John -- Racine, WI -- Woodworking..."It's not just a Hobby, it's an Adventure"

Very impressive stuff. An inspiration to get a workbench built.

-- -- Skee from MN

Great looking work bench. No, it is a superb work bench. But, that cannot be your shop. It is too clean and uncluttered. Where is the sawdust?

-- Fred Childs, Pasadena, CA - - - Law of the Workshop: Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

My hat off to you, that is a great looking bench, but as someone said to me its a bit to clean, time to use it and get it dirty!

-- Charlie, Connecticut

Fantastic workbench! I don’t want to be around the day you put the first ding in it. Where’s the workbench you used to build this workbench?

-- RonR, Massachusetts

Actually, I beat up the top a little before I even put the finish on it – while I was chopping out the dovetails for the aprons. I was using my router table as a makeshift workbench before I put it in storage to move overseas. While I was building this bench, I used 2 milk crates and the slab of 12/4 mahogany that eventually became the aprons and vise jaws as my “bench” on the floor.

Great work!! I like the design!

-- Scott - Dallas, Texas

very impressive!

-- Dorje (pronounced "door-jay"), Seattle, WA

My strong suspicion all along is that this really isn’t being used as a work bench, but rather a dinning room table. I mean, let’s get serious Beech & Mahogany?

My wife would be please to grace this beautiful dinning table with her best China. LOL

-- CanuckDon "I just love small wooden boxes!" http://www.canterburybaptist.org/

I took a roll of the dice, and this popped back up again. How much have you used your workbench so far? Are there any scratches or dings on it yet? It is still a great looking piece.

-- Bill, Turlock California, http://www.brookswoodworks.com

I ran a chisel into the top a couple times while I was cutting the dovetails in the skirts, so I nicked it before it was even finished. Aside from that, I haven’t done much damage to it thus far. I haven’t gotten the chance to do much work on it yet, though. I’m currently in the middle of 5 weeks of training, 5 hours away from home. When I return home from that I’ll fly out two days later to go to Kiev, Ukraine. After all of that is over, the beatings will begin!

So far, the only other damage is a few rings from setting cold drinks on it during our “6th” of July party. My shop is on the bottom floor of my house, and my dartboard is in there. My friends were worried about setting their drinks on the bench. They just don’t understand that it’s meant to be abused!

Great bench what great atention to detail keep up the great work

-- piper

Very Nice!

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

Sweet!!!

Nice set of dovetailss you carved there. I’m green with envy.

I also like your attitude. It’s way too beautiful for a bench, somehow like shiny new shoes… it IS meant to be abused and gain a patina. That would be a wonderful looking workbench in 30 years.

-- Jojo, shopless in Kyoto · http://www.japanese-woodworking-tools.com/

That is one fantastic looking bench and it looks like it will be a great user also.

Fantastic job.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com

This project came up on Roll The Dice – glad it did. I had mnissed this one and sure glad i got a chance to see it. Fabulous work!!! I may have to sand my top down a bit to not look like trailer trash next to this one.

Thanks for sharing your bench.

-- Joel Tille

ebanista,

I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t branch out much as far as finishes go. I used what I more or less always use. Good old Formby’s high gloss tung oil varnish. I usually wax over that. Probably the first time I flatten the work surface I’ll refinish it (the top and tops of the vises, etc) with boiled linseed oil or one of the more traditional benchtop finishes I’ve read about (that all escape me at the moment).

I like the Frank Klausz bench as well. Be sure to post yours when you’re done.

The most important thing that you can’t be afraid to beat it up when you’re done. I’ve already put a nice arc in mine with a 1/4” router bit about 1/32” deep and several divots and gouges from chisels, hammers, nubs on natural edge boards, etc. The first couple of blemishes bothered me a little, but now I just figure that every new slip up that scars my bench just adds “character.”

Lovely work. I live in Central Florida where Southern Yellow Pine is abundant and of sufficient quality for bench building. Your design is one that I had considered for quite some time before hazarding a design of my own. Enough about me.

What are the top dimensions for your bench and have you found anything you would change? I like the twin screw vise and am putting one on the face of my bench ala Michael Dubar using two wooden screws set just over 24in apart. Also, how’s it to plane on? Have you worked any long or wide stock on it and has it fulfilled your expectations?

Thanks,
J.C.

-- "Imagination is more important than knowledge" -- Albert Einstein

J.C.

It’s my first bench, so I definitely have some “lessons learned” to pass on. One critical thing that I wasn’t careful enough about was the placement of my dog holes. I cut the square dog holes with a router and a jig . To evenly space the dog holes across the width of the bench, I had to reverse the incline of the jig. I honestly can’t remember anymroe if I just swapped the guide block to the other side or if I built another jig. Either way, I wasn’t careful enough with the placement of the block and consequently the spacing of my dog holes along the strips wasn’t the same, with two having a slightly longer spacing than the other two. The ultimate result of that was that two rows of dog holes were out of alignment with the other two. This error being multiplicative in nature meant that the alignment error gets worse the farther away from the end vise you go. What that all boils down to is that if I want to clamp up a panel using four dogs, I have to put a shim between one of the dogs and the panel. It’s a minor inconvenience, but annoying nonetheless.

Also, I wasn’t careful enough with all of my round dog holes. I don’t have them all drilled perfectly perpendicular to the bench top.

The takeaway here is “take your time on the dog holes, they’re the most important part of the bench!”

I built it from Lon Schleining’s plans. They’re on Fine Woodworking’s website here , but I’m not sure if that’s free content or if you need to be a subscriber to view them (I’m a subscriber). They are also in his book. I added some dog holes along the front apron and a corresponding dog hole in the end vise. Those have come in handy.

The overall dimensions of the top are 78 1/2” x 27 3/4”. For most projects, that’s sufficiently large. My first project, however, was a king size bed and I kept wishing that I had made the bench at least a few inches longer. I haven’t run into any problems, aside from the long bed rails, clamping anything on the bench for planing, scraping, etc. Even with the long bed rails, I was able to work around the problems by just using the bench dogs in my end vise as planing stops and working from the other side of the bench.

Great Job!

-- Bud, NY, http://tpww.libsyn.com/

nice workbench.

-- CJIII Future cabinetmaker