Watch This Before Building a Workbench for Woodworking

hi I’m Joshua Farnsworth and in this video I’ll talk about five features you should consider when building or buying a workbench for woodworking if you’re watching this video then you’re probably considering making or buying a workbench for your workshop I’ve built a lot of work benches over the years including most of the work benches here in my school so I’d like to take a little bit of time and share my opinion on five features that I feel are important for woodworkers to consider before building or buying their own workbench and I’d also like to dispel some commonly accepted dogma about workbench construction and before I get started I want to let you know that this video that you’re watching goes along with my very popular tool buying guide articles I’ll share a link below this video to my guide on choosing a workbench design my tool guides have a lot more detail than I have time to share in videos and also in my guides I I mentioned specific brand names and models of tools that I prefer which I don’t like to do on videos so much because my opinion can change and it’s hard to change videos a lot easier to change articles I’ll also be making videos for all my other guides on by hand tools and power tools so if you subscribe to my youtube channel down there you’ll be notified immediately when those videos are released coming up here soon all right so let’s jump into the five features that I consider to be the most important when choosing a workbench design one of the most important features to look for in workbench design is sturdiness and stability hand planning and sawing on a cheap and flimsy workbench will become frustrating very quickly as you’re you find it your workbench is moving and shaking across the room in most cases sheer mass and wait are usually the solution for a sturdy workbench along with solid construction with good wood joinery like mortise and tenon joints you can see how a beefy work bench like this roubo style workbench has a massively heavy top and thick heavy legs a workbench like this does not move easily trust me I wish I had taken a video of me flipping the beast over and back during this construction you would have had a pretty good laugh although I wasn’t laughing at the time so the roubo workbench style is one of my favorites I think it looks really nice with the dovetail joint there and the thick top but the tops on a workbench like this are usually five to six inches thick but a workbench top with three to four inch thick top will usually provide you with the mass that you need I’ve found a couple commercial work benches that are sturdy enough for hand tool work but surprisingly not many I’ve listed the models in my workbench guide for you to check out but what if you don’t have a suitable place to use a massive workbench like this and what if you want a workbench that can be transported to a job site or a craft fair does that mean you have to sacrifice stability no that’s where the ingenious portable Moravian workbench design comes in this is probably my favorite workbench design the Moravians were a religious sect in the 1700s up to modern time from Moravia but they designed this portable yet sturdy workbench in the 1700s and the folks at the Old Salem Moravian settlement in North Carolina have resurrected the design and the angle displayed legs incredibly keep this workbench from moving across the room when I’m hand planing which is really nice the workbench can be assembled in or disassembled in under a minute in fact you should check out the video that I filmed a will Myers where he assembled one of these Moravian work benches in under men I’ll put a link below or it’ll pop up here somewhere because of its light weight once it’s taken apart the Moravian workbench can be transported by just one person I’ve made both slab tops and laminated tops for my Mehrabian work benches and I like them both and and I find that I can pretty easily carry all of them they weigh probably around 70 to 90 pounds each and the undercarriage parts are made of lightweight wood but they’re still sturdy because of the strong joints and it’s nice because you can save money not having to spend money on an expensive wood for your undercarriage I had one person to email me to tell me that he built a Moravian workbench which he now transports up the elevator in his high-rise apartment in New York City so this is pretty cool and versatile bench will Meyers my friend drew ups free plans for the Moravian workbench which you can get on my workbench guide that I mentioned earlier and because this is our favorite workbench design will and I also made a seven hour video tutorial on making this workbench using hand tools it’s geared towards beginner woodworkers but anybody will find it helpful you can purchase the DVD or the high-definition download at my store I’ll put the link somewhere here some of my friends really like their English style work benches as you see here and I do like some things about this style like they have big aprons for flexibility and holding your workpiece with a hold fast and they usually have nice legs and nice vices and also they’re pretty fast to build and pretty affordable to build however one drawback that’s kept me from building one for myself is the thinness of the top which doesn’t feel as stable to me when I’m pounding on a joiners mallet and I also the biggest problem for me is it’s also super loud because of the echo that’s caused by the vibration of the thin wood and I just couldn’t have ten work benches here in my school with tops like that or I’d be deaf in no time at all who would echo the walls but if you only need one workbench it’s not a bad option the next feature I’ll talk about our vices device is used to clamp your workpiece to the workbench so you can play and saw shape it in a number of ways one or two vices are usually sufficient for a traditional workbench has some very traditional woodworkers sometimes like to have one or even zero vices like people who are building a reproduction period roubo workbench but I prefer to have two vices myself and I place them into two categories a face vise points to ward the furniture maker on the face of the workbench and a tail lice is attached to the end of the workbench and just so you know other woodworkers may have different terminology than me for parts of the workbench which is okay so let’s talk about face vices there are a few different styles of face vices the first style I’ll talk about is a leg bias a leg vise is one of the most common traditional vices that you’ll find on antique work benches and this type of vise is attached to the front leg or a board that’s attached to the front leg and it’s tightened down with a wooden or a metal screw and a handle a parallel guide with a metal pin keep the vise from racking or stretching too far to where it can break this is my personal preference for a face vise because there’s so much room to clamp would without Hardware getting in the way like on some other vices and I really like using historical wooden screws on my vices of course you can check out my workbench guide for some companies that make really popular metal hardware for leg vices there’s some pretty cool ones out there shoulder vices were very common in continental Europe and they have a wide unobstructed opening that works great for cutting dovetails on wider boards this type of vise is more complex to make but well worth it if you can take the time and to learn how to make it this is the style that some of you may remember that Frank Klaus made so popular on his workbench that he released years ago and I think it was in fine woodworking magazine this next style of Vice has the same name as the category that I’m discussing I simply call it a face vise it’s another very traditional European type of work bench vise this vise is usually the same thickness as your work bench top and clamps against the top with either one or two screw arms a drawback of this style advice in my opinion is that the screws get in the way of clamping wider boards also if you clamp a board in the side of the vise you need to keep a these a spacer of some sort to keep the vise from rack there have been some modern designs that have slightly improved upon this design which I’ll mention in further detail in my article cast iron vices came about during the mass production era of the Industrial Revolution and they’re typically bolted to the bottom of a work bench top and wood is usually added to the vise jaws to offer protection to a wooden workpiece because you don’t want metal crimping in on your your wood and while this is a strong style of ice it doesn’t have a traditional look that many woodworkers prefer when they are building a classic style of workbench but that may not be very important to you and you may not care I have mine bolted to the work bench in my garage it’s more of a flat work space auxilary vices as I call them our vices that can be clamped to your workbench top even to a tabletop in your house or a door if your for example you’re waiting to build a workbench and you don’t have a workbench now this type of auxilary vise with double screws is often called a Moxon vise because the design was featured in Joseph’s Moxon’s book that he wrote in 1703 called mechanic’s exercises so I love this style advice for dovetailing large boards predominately because it has such a wide space between the wooden screws or metal screws in some cases 24 inches I believe is what mine is and it could even be raised up on tall blocks to prevent bending over it and have a back string now let’s talk about in vices and vices are used to clamp a workpiece between bench dogs bench dogs if you don’t know are the pieces of wood or metal that stick up in the holes in these dog holes and I divide vices into three subcategories again this is my terminology [Music] the first style of invites I’ll mention is a tail lice like all the end of Isis a tail vise moves a bench dog to clamp a workpiece along the length of the workbench this type of vise also allows the woodworker to clamp a vertical piece of wood between the wooden vise and the cutout section of the work put work bench top which i think is pretty cool and it’s pretty fast way to work on a small piece a wagon vise works similar to a tail lice but rather than the entire enclosure moving just the bench dog moves in an open recess that you cut in the workbench top this is a much simpler vise to install than a tail vise and it’s the style that I use on most of my work benches it doesn’t take long to install at all an in vice part of the category with the same name is just like a face vise but it’s attached to the end of a workbench this type of ice can be useful because it allows you to tighten bores between two rows of bench dogs rather than just one this is helpful if you plan to work on really wide projects like doors or a really wide board but like the very similar face vise it does require a spacer to keep the vise screws from racking also I don’t find that I hardly ever use the two dogs at one time another important feature to have on your workbench is legs that are flush with the bench top this will allow you to clamp long boards or doors to the face of your workbench a lot of commercial workbench makers sorry to say seem to have not done their research and they manufacture work benches with tops that overhang the legs if you’ve already got a workbench that doesn’t have flush legs don’t stress out and go get a new one you can probably use a spacer board against the workbench leg attach it somehow and that should work so what is the proper height length and width for a workbench there’s a lot of people who will tell you exactly what size is best or exactly the rule to size your workbench but I’d like to tell you that it’s all a matter of personal preference and what you plan on doing on your workbench so what do people say is a proper workbench height I’ve heard many times that the workbench should come to your knuckles when you’re standing straight up I’m not sure who made up that rule of thumb but the ideal height of a workbench totally depends on what’s comfortable to you and it depends on what you’re going to be doing on the workbench I personally like a lower workbench like this because I do a lot of hand planing and I find that I get a lot more power with so much of my body mass leaning over the hand plane I find that it’s also easier to see what I’m doing when using molding planes what I need to look at the spring line or I need to look at the molding that’s coming about or using a rabbet plane or something like that yes six foot two inches my back can get a little tired if I’m leaning over with lower bunch to cut a bunch of joints but most of the time it’s just fine to be honest and if for example I’m cutting a bunch of dovetails I can just clamp my mocks and vice onto this workbench under some blocks to raise it up or I could sit down problem solved the length of a workbench can vary considerably too and it largely depends on the space that you’ve got to work with in your workshop or in your house most of my larger workbench is around eight feet in length because that’s that was the most economical use of lumber or how they’re longer lumber came cut around that that length these Moravian work benches on the other hand are just over six feet long and I rarely find them to be too short if a longboard won’t fit between the bench dogs then you can just find another method to hold the board there’s a lot of ways to clamp a board tear your work now what about the width I’ve heard a lot of woodworkers say that it has to be 24 inches wide and I just find that that’s not true well I do often like a nice wide work bench I usually base the width off of my work bench off of the material that I have available for example this roubo workbench is 18 inches wide and this other one behind me happens to be just under 24 inches wide and so why did I choose those sizes I didn’t it was just the size of the slabs that came out of the trees and after I was finished squaring up the boards I was what they were conventional woodworking dogma would say that this Moravian workbench top is way too narrow at 14 inches but in reality the majority of hand tool work that I do takes place within the first six to eight inches of the edge of the workbench if I want to do assemblies or glue ups I can just throw a piece of plywood or subflooring or something on top of the workbench top extending here onto the tool tray and that will give me a place for dripping glue on to as well so it’s it works just fine that way now I will touch on a controversial topic of tool trades some people love them and some people absolutely despise them because they say it makes a mess I like benches with tool trays but I also like matches without tool trays I have multiple benches with and without my work benches that are full width also have a space underneath to store my tools so that’s not a problem but these Moravian work benches have a really great removable tool tray and it lets you store your tools and so it doesn’t get messy these actually pop out and you can dump your shavings on the ground where things get messy just don’t dump your tools out if you don’t feel really confident in your woodworking skills yet then I’d like to suggest a really simple and affordable workbench this french-style workbench is made out of southern yellow pine from the hardware store yellow pine is a harder softwood and works great for any workbench undercarriages and it even works fine for workbench tops that is if you don’t mind that it looks like a workbench and not a fine table you know what I mean I buy the two by twelve construction lumber from the hardware store in fact a big-box store but it has to be the 16 foot length boards because mills use the best quality trees for those boards just don’t make the mistake of buying pressure-treated lumber that wood you don’t need an outdoor bench also I’ve found that the people the hardware store are more than willing to cut the boards in half to make it easier to get to get them home 16 feet is kind of long for anybody’s truck then I just rip them in half on the bandsaw to get a nice course on lumber and I mill my parts from that wood after that it’s just a matter of laminating the top with with glue and doing normal mortise and tenon joinery which you can see how to do that if you’re not familiar with one of my past videos and I’ll link to that below this video well that’s probably about as much as you can handle sitting and learning about workbenches at one one time so like I said you can find much more advice on the accompanying workbench guide the link is below and if you have any questions about work benches or bench construction please leave a comment below and I’ll try to answer it and while you’re down there this isn’t tough just give the video a thumbs up if you liked it and make sure you subscribe to my channel because in the next video I’ll show all the different workbench fixtures and accessories that I use here in my school like this so like to say thanks for hanging out here at my shop this is Joshua Farnsworth if you’re interested in woodworking with a mix of hand tools and power tools visit my website at wood and shop comm where you can find a bunch of free woodworking lessons workshop towards of amazing woodworkers and our very popular tool buying guides you can ask questions and share your projects with thousands of woodworkers on my forum enjoy …

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