work bench ideas
“+10,000 Step By Step Plans …even if you don’t have a large workshop or expensive tools!“ Click Here 👈
it is crazy that I am using the third bench that I built and I don’t mean like three benches in three years kind of thing I’ve put them all through the paces this one is probably going to be my last because of a couple of totally unconventional design elements that you just don’t see in a lot of other benches the first and most obvious thing just being this High cross rail Nobody Does this and they probably should most traditional hand tool woodworking benches either have an apron across the top which is like a cross rail at the very top of the bench or the cross rails at the bottom of the bench and it forms a Shelf at the bottom of the bench this one kind of gives you the best of both worlds plus it gives you a couple of added benefits When I designed this bench the reason that I actually put the crossrail where it is is because I wanted to be able to slide a tool chest or some saw horses underneath there and that’s actually the perfect height where I would easily be able to slide a tool chest or some saw horses right underneath the bench I’m in a small space I don’t have a lot of extra realist State and floor space so I wanted to consolidate things keep everything underneath the bench keeps it tidier and takes up a lot less space because I don’t have any space to spare to be honest one thing if you’re using hand tools and making wood shavings or wood chips and stuff like that this stuff gets everywhere all over the bench top underneath the bench and being able to sweep out those wood shavings and just help keep a clean shop is very handy a cross rail at the very bottom would block a broom from getting underneath it you’d have to kind of blow it out plus that shelf would just collect wood shavings like crazy something else that I didn’t even know was going to be so useful that kind of learned by accident just from making projects here is that that cross rail it’s about three inches wide so it’s pretty pretty substantial it makes a nice little shelf on almost every project there will be times where I’ll hang some clamps on the shelf or my bench hook I’ll put that on the cross rail I’ve even used it as a shelf to hold like little screws and screwdrivers and stuff like that I’m sitting here editing this video I forgot the coolest part about that cross rail we’re going back in my old bench was a Nicholson kind of bench so it had a big apron and in between the aprons I put in some shelves that would hold tools that I didn’t want like up on the bench top it also had my sharpening stones so when I was designing the new bench I had a really cool idea check this out the idea was basically to have a shelf that was underneath the bench top I would use these two cross rails as a way of attaching it and most of this stuff would easily fit even my sharpening Stones would really easily fit but I wanted to make sure that my hand planes would also have enough room to go in like this because I don’t care what you guys say I’m not putting them on their side and I know that gives some of y’all nightmares and I’m sorry so the under the bench shelf idea I’ve kind of shelved it for now no pun intended but what do y’all think about that shelf idea I think it’s kind of cool the other thing you’ll notice that my bench is pretty wide most traditional hand tool woodworking benches are kind of in the 20 to 24 inches wide range my bench is closer to 30 inches wide the reason for that is that I’m not just cutting joinery here at the bench and then going over to the assembly table like my whole Workshop is pretty tight it’s all happening right here I wanted a bench where I could have plenty of room to do Stock Prep to cut the joinery and to assemble projects having the extra width having a big wide workbench it’s kind of just like an all-in-one bench to me I want to be able to have room to work without knocking tools off I’m doing everything at the bench the channel is called Frank’s workbench not Frank’s Workshop because the workshop’s pretty small the bench is my workshop I’m doing it all here on the bench having that extra width really helps with that in fact here you go how about the world’s fastest shop tour hey I want to take a minute to thank the sponsor of today’s video brilliant.org look we all know that the best way to learn woodworking is by doing it it’s got to be Hands-On brilliant takes this concept of Interactive Learning and applies it to all sorts of stem topics from math and computer science to coding there are literally thousands of lessons where you learn by doing you decide what topics you’re most interested in say for example computer science and you can begin learning and even mastering some of these stem Topics in as little as 15 minutes a day you can check out everything brilliant has to offer for free for 30 days just go to brilliant.org Frank’s workbench or click the link in the description and the first 200 of you to sign up will get 20 off of Brilliance premium annual subscription thanks again to brilliant.org for sponsoring today’s video so the third thing I’ve had a lot of people say why two by sixes and when they ask why two by sixes it’s usually coming from one of two places one they’re saying why are using soft wood instead of hardwood or they’re saying why are you using two by sixes instead of two by fours it seems for some reason like almost every bench is they’re all made with two by fours instead of two by sixes so why soft wood instead of hardwood dents and dings are gonna happen so when you’re working on a project it’s actually better to have a soft wood bench if you’re working on a hardwood project because when they come into collision with each other when dents and dings are going to happen it’d be better for the bench to be softer so that it takes the dents and dings and your project doesn’t get damaged also two by sixes are strong they’re heavy enough without this bench weighing like five thousand pounds I can still move it around if I need to but it’s heavy enough where I can use tools like this without the bench just scooting around all over the floor two by sixes are also inexpensive and they’re readily available and I still get comments and emails and stuff about wow the wood is so expensive guys I don’t know if you’ve looked at wood prices lately but the days of two by fours costing nine dollars a piece are like long gone they’re back to basically Dirt Cheap so a two by six cost a little bit more than a two by four but this bench is very cheap to make at today’s prices the two by six is 457 at Home Depot in my area I used 32 boards and I actually had some leftovers so that would make this bench cost less than 150 bucks and lumber wide 2×6 is instead of two by fours a couple of other reasons stiffness the two by sixes are wider obviously that’s going to add to stiffness over the span of the bench I can do a mortise right in the middle of the bench this thing is solid as a rock also that extra width for the top is kind of cool because if I want to flatten this bench top I have a ton of extra thickness to go ahead and flatten this thing I don’t ever have to worry about this getting too thin and the half reason the three and a half it blows my mind but I’ve literally had people like mad at me throwing like insults at me because of where I placed my Vise I put it on the inside of the leg that’s where I like it for a couple of reasons but peop but there are some people out there that have apparently been very angered by that because they say the vice should go right at the end of the bench and if your Vise is all the way at the end of your bench I’m not saying you need to take it off and move it or anything like do your thing it doesn’t matter but I don’t like it at the end of the bench I’ve never used at the end of the bench so I can’t say I don’t like it but I don’t like the idea of it there because if it’s in the very end of your workbench you have this space to work with you like 90 degrees of of bench space all this stuff is just in the air that’s dead space you can’t use it when you’re more Central and your bench you have all this space and all this space to place stuff down to work just to to put your materials uh everything so if you’ve watched me actually build some of my projects you can see that for my workflow that’s pretty much how I do things I I use all this space around the Vise and it really works well for me and if you’re thinking about making any kind of workbench and want to know how to set up a bench vise unlike anything you have ever seen then check out this video next …