# Oak Workbench



## mattd (Aug 8, 2007)

*Getting Started*

I think it's time for a new workbench. The old fold up table works ok for some things, but it's not great for holding work flat and it's too low.

I got a ton of short 6/4 white oak boards from a local woodworker a few weeks ago. Since then, I have been stuck with the idea of making them into a workbench top and got a start on it today.

The main features I'm planning are:


24" x 60" 
2 1/2" Thick
Front and End vise
Round Dog holes 
37" height to match table saw
Sliding/Removable Tool tray (from Hank Holzer bench)
Solid Base - Still need to figure this out.

Here are some of the original oak boards.










I ripped the boards into 2 3/4" widths and layed them out (on end) in the general sort of shape I'm going for:










The next step I'm working on is to get the boards into 6" sub-assembly sections so I can joint and square them on my 6" jointer. Eventually, I'll combine 4 of these sections into the 24" top.


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## MsDebbieP (Jan 4, 2007)

mattd said:


> *Getting Started*
> 
> I think it's time for a new workbench. The old fold up table works ok for some things, but it's not great for holding work flat and it's too low.
> 
> ...


great project / excellent blog topic!! I'll be watching


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## Mario (Apr 23, 2007)

mattd said:


> *Getting Started*
> 
> I think it's time for a new workbench. The old fold up table works ok for some things, but it's not great for holding work flat and it's too low.
> 
> ...


Nice start to the bench, I am making mine also and have been loosely followint these free plans.
http://pages.friendlycity.net/%7Ekrucker/Bench/index.htm


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## mattd (Aug 8, 2007)

*Glue Up*

The bench is moving along pretty good. Using all these short pieces has to be one of the harder ways to build a bench. I've used almost 1/2 gallon of glue so far. I faced up the best grain and the variations are interesting to me.

So far, I've made up 4 six inch wide sections and jointed 3 sides on each of them. Here I am gluing up 2 of those sections into a 12" wide section that I will run through my 12.5" planer. Then I'll glue those 12" sections together and hopefully have a flat 24" wide bench top!


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## DaveJ (Aug 29, 2007)

mattd said:


> *Glue Up*
> 
> The bench is moving along pretty good. Using all these short pieces has to be one of the harder ways to build a bench. I've used almost 1/2 gallon of glue so far. I faced up the best grain and the variations are interesting to me.
> 
> So far, I've made up 4 six inch wide sections and jointed 3 sides on each of them. Here I am gluing up 2 of those sections into a 12" wide section that I will run through my 12.5" planer. Then I'll glue those 12" sections together and hopefully have a flat 24" wide bench top!


Looks great Matt. That is one cool picture.


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## Tangle (Jul 21, 2007)

mattd said:


> *Glue Up*
> 
> The bench is moving along pretty good. Using all these short pieces has to be one of the harder ways to build a bench. I've used almost 1/2 gallon of glue so far. I faced up the best grain and the variations are interesting to me.
> 
> So far, I've made up 4 six inch wide sections and jointed 3 sides on each of them. Here I am gluing up 2 of those sections into a 12" wide section that I will run through my 12.5" planer. Then I'll glue those 12" sections together and hopefully have a flat 24" wide bench top!


Pretty neat. lots of work but probably worth it


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## mot (May 8, 2007)

mattd said:


> *Glue Up*
> 
> The bench is moving along pretty good. Using all these short pieces has to be one of the harder ways to build a bench. I've used almost 1/2 gallon of glue so far. I faced up the best grain and the variations are interesting to me.
> 
> So far, I've made up 4 six inch wide sections and jointed 3 sides on each of them. Here I am gluing up 2 of those sections into a 12" wide section that I will run through my 12.5" planer. Then I'll glue those 12" sections together and hopefully have a flat 24" wide bench top!


How are you doing the end grain joints on the table?


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## mattd (Aug 8, 2007)

mattd said:


> *Glue Up*
> 
> The bench is moving along pretty good. Using all these short pieces has to be one of the harder ways to build a bench. I've used almost 1/2 gallon of glue so far. I faced up the best grain and the variations are interesting to me.
> 
> So far, I've made up 4 six inch wide sections and jointed 3 sides on each of them. Here I am gluing up 2 of those sections into a 12" wide section that I will run through my 12.5" planer. Then I'll glue those 12" sections together and hopefully have a flat 24" wide bench top!


Mot - I just did end to end butt joints (and a good amount of glue). There are also overlapping laminations around these joints.


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## Treefarmer (Mar 19, 2007)

mattd said:


> *Glue Up*
> 
> The bench is moving along pretty good. Using all these short pieces has to be one of the harder ways to build a bench. I've used almost 1/2 gallon of glue so far. I faced up the best grain and the variations are interesting to me.
> 
> So far, I've made up 4 six inch wide sections and jointed 3 sides on each of them. Here I am gluing up 2 of those sections into a 12" wide section that I will run through my 12.5" planer. Then I'll glue those 12" sections together and hopefully have a flat 24" wide bench top!


That's going to be a nice solid bench.


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## mattd (Aug 8, 2007)

*Adding cherry strips*

I think it's finally resembling something similar to a bench top. I squared off the sides of the top and routed out a space for some 1" cherry strips.

Lots of scraping and sanding left to do. I'm starting to look at some different hardware options. I'm fairly settled on a basic front and end vise, but I'm not sure what to get. Looking at some old columbian and record vises or even some wood screw vises (Which seem to be hard to find.)










Here are the inlaid cherry strips ready for a hand plane and card scraper! The two strips are bookmatched to each other and there is a really cool pattern on one end that you can't see too well in this picture.


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## David (Jan 26, 2007)

mattd said:


> *Adding cherry strips*
> 
> I think it's finally resembling something similar to a bench top. I squared off the sides of the top and routed out a space for some 1" cherry strips.
> 
> ...


Matt -

Looks beautiful! What are your plans for the base? Looking forward to see what the top looks like with the cherry strips. What are your plans for finish?

David


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## Partridge (Jul 27, 2007)

mattd said:


> *Adding cherry strips*
> 
> I think it's finally resembling something similar to a bench top. I squared off the sides of the top and routed out a space for some 1" cherry strips.
> 
> ...


This with need and hefty base.. nice use of scrap.


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## brunob (Dec 26, 2006)

mattd said:


> *Adding cherry strips*
> 
> I think it's finally resembling something similar to a bench top. I squared off the sides of the top and routed out a space for some 1" cherry strips.
> 
> ...


If you're interested in wood screws, I have a tap and die for 1" screws. I'd loan them out. The only problem with wood is that you can't put the same ammount of pressure on them.


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## mattd (Aug 8, 2007)

mattd said:


> *Adding cherry strips*
> 
> I think it's finally resembling something similar to a bench top. I squared off the sides of the top and routed out a space for some 1" cherry strips.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the comments.

Bruno - I appreciate your offer to loan out the tap and die. Building a wood vise has crossed my mind! Now I know why the workbench books say it will take more time than you expect to build a bench. (well. that's true for all my projects)

David - I am thinking of a fairly thick pine base with maybe a green or blue milk paint finish. I'd probably add a drawer cabinet later. Probably 50/50 turp/blo for the top. I love the smell of that stuff.


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## Drew1House (Mar 18, 2007)

mattd said:


> *Adding cherry strips*
> 
> I think it's finally resembling something similar to a bench top. I squared off the sides of the top and routed out a space for some 1" cherry strips.
> 
> ...


I built one last year that is pretty big… I was thinking I would use some angle iron shop fox legs till I could build maple ones but am going to take them off for a set of these I ordered and not go with wood… I got the caster set as well and have heard they are great but will move a bit with them on… I hope it works as well in reality as it does in my head.

Drew

http://www.adjustabench.com/


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## Treefarmer (Mar 19, 2007)

mattd said:


> *Adding cherry strips*
> 
> I think it's finally resembling something similar to a bench top. I squared off the sides of the top and routed out a space for some 1" cherry strips.
> 
> ...


That's going to be one beautiful bench.


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## mattd (Aug 8, 2007)

*Starting the Base*

In part 4 of this workbench adventure, I've added some ash strips to the sides with oak pegs and planed them down flat to the benchtop. The ash is from an old tree I took down in my mother's back yard and it's been drying since early spring. It's the first time I've used any of it and it was fun to plane it down and see how it finally turned out.










I designed a base within the limits of two 12 foot 2×12s. I looked around a few local yards, but found some fairly clear KD douglas fir at Lowes that I liked. Each board was $12.99 and the bolt hardware was about $8.










Next is to move on to assembling the base!


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## brunob (Dec 26, 2006)

mattd said:


> *Starting the Base*
> 
> In part 4 of this workbench adventure, I've added some ash strips to the sides with oak pegs and planed them down flat to the benchtop. The ash is from an old tree I took down in my mother's back yard and it's been drying since early spring. It's the first time I've used any of it and it was fun to plane it down and see how it finally turned out.
> 
> ...


Lookin good Matt. Keep those pictures comming.


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## Tangle (Jul 21, 2007)

mattd said:


> *Starting the Base*
> 
> In part 4 of this workbench adventure, I've added some ash strips to the sides with oak pegs and planed them down flat to the benchtop. The ash is from an old tree I took down in my mother's back yard and it's been drying since early spring. It's the first time I've used any of it and it was fun to plane it down and see how it finally turned out.
> 
> ...


Isn't that fun planeing good wood on a big surface? Keep it coming.


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## mattd (Aug 8, 2007)

*Finishing the Base*

The base is completed. This is way beyond the weekend project I planned.

Now I'm thinking about a finish for the base. I originally planned on painting it a solid color with an exterior oil paint, but the douglass fir looks good to me (my wife thinks so too), so I might just do a BLO/turp finish on that also.

The base was made from two 2×12x12 douglass fir. For the legs, I face glued three 2"x5"x35" boards together leaving space in the middle section to create a mortise for the lower side rails to go through the legs like thru tenons. The long stretchers on the front and back are bolted through the leg posts and side rail tenons with 7" bolts. I cross bored 1" holes on the backs of the stretchers to get access to the threaded end of the bolts (inside the stretchers) that clamp the whole thing together. It's rock solid.










After the finish, I need to figure out how to attach a fairly interesting leg vise I found on Ebay. Actually, I'm not really sure what I have here, so I added a forum topic about it.

Other things left to do:

Find an End Vise
Dog Holes
End Caps
Tool Tray?


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

mattd said:


> *Finishing the Base*
> 
> The base is completed. This is way beyond the weekend project I planned.
> 
> ...


Great table.


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## WayneC (Mar 8, 2007)

mattd said:


> *Finishing the Base*
> 
> The base is completed. This is way beyond the weekend project I planned.
> 
> ...


Very nice. Good luck on fitting the leg vice.


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## Tangle (Jul 21, 2007)

mattd said:


> *Finishing the Base*
> 
> The base is completed. This is way beyond the weekend project I planned.
> 
> ...


From the looks of it , it shouldn't bounce around much. Nice work.


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## MsDebbieP (Jan 4, 2007)

mattd said:


> *Finishing the Base*
> 
> The base is completed. This is way beyond the weekend project I planned.
> 
> ...


it's beautiful!! Well done.. You must be feeling really good about this creation!!!


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## TheGravedigger (May 20, 2007)

mattd said:


> *Finishing the Base*
> 
> The base is completed. This is way beyond the weekend project I planned.
> 
> ...


Looks strong and stable, which is the main thing. I agree about the finish. I used blo/turp/spar poly on mine, and it's worked out just fine. Good job! Funny how those "weekend" projects keep growing and growing and…


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## willmego (Mar 27, 2008)

mattd said:


> *Finishing the Base*
> 
> The base is completed. This is way beyond the weekend project I planned.
> 
> ...


I bet you finished this off a while back, since it's been a long time…perhaps a pic to update? I just ran across this project and like the looks of what you've done.


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## PurpLev (May 30, 2008)

mattd said:


> *Finishing the Base*
> 
> The base is completed. This is way beyond the weekend project I planned.
> 
> ...


looks great! those 'weekend' jobs should really be renamed to 'weekendS' jobs as we all experience them just the same.

how are you going to attache that leg vise? I notice from the pic here that the leg is not flush with the front of the top? are you going to add another wood chunk to flush the front leg with the front of the top? or will you move the top backwards so that it'll sit flush with the front feet?


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## a1Jim (Aug 9, 2008)

mattd said:


> *Finishing the Base*
> 
> The base is completed. This is way beyond the weekend project I planned.
> 
> ...


super bench


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## Pairodocs (Jul 11, 2009)

mattd said:


> *Finishing the Base*
> 
> The base is completed. This is way beyond the weekend project I planned.
> 
> ...


I built a bench almost identical to that one for my father a couple of years ago. I made the top from Southern Yellow Pine, glued up with biscuits and Titebond III, and plugged the screw holes with oak dowels. I also chamfered all of the edges. It's beautiful, the contrast of the oak and SYP. I like to use Tung oil to finish the tops. It's hard, resistant to moisture,, and easily repaired. That SYP top jumps with that penetrating oil finish. This is a very stable bench. I also put 1×6 slats in a rabbet to make a lower shelf.


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## sbryan55 (Dec 8, 2007)

mattd said:


> *Finishing the Base*
> 
> The base is completed. This is way beyond the weekend project I planned.
> 
> ...


Matt, this is one nice looking bench. It does look like it is solid and well built.


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## TheOtherMrRogers (Jun 5, 2012)

mattd said:


> *Finishing the Base*
> 
> The base is completed. This is way beyond the weekend project I planned.
> 
> ...


Its been years, how does it look today?


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