Whenever a beginning bench-builder bends my ear, the No. 1 question they have is usually about what species of wood they should use to build their workbench.

They’re almost always vapor-locked on the issue and unable to proceed on their design until they pick the perfect species.

In my experience, there is a far better way to ask this question: What woods shouldn’t you use to build a bench? That list is far shorter.

Depending on your workbench’s design, the list of verboten species could be entirely empty. You can make a fantastic workbench out of the cheapest white pine 2 x 12s at the home center – just make the top 5” thick and the legs 5” x 5”. It’ll be awesome.

But people don’t want to use white pine I guess, because that’s for stud walls and skateboard ramps. Or it’s too cheap. Or it dents too easily. So I know that I can’t talk anyone into making a white pine bench, no matter how hard I try.

So here’s are the important characteristics of an ideal workbench wood that won’t get you laughed out of your local woodworking guild.

1. It should be stiff. A stiff species will allow you to cross long spans with the top unsupported by aprons or braces, which can get in the way of your clamps. To determine how stiff a species is, check out the chart I’ve included here that I lifted from my book, “Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use.” (It’s fun to violate my own copyright.)

2. It should be heavy. Heavy benches are superior to lightweight benches, which you chase around your shop. A heavy bench moves only when you want it to. Check the wood’s specific gravity – its weight compared to water. That’s the measuring stick for this characteristic.

3. It should be inexpensive. You don’t have to buy steamed European beech to make a great bench. Until recently, European beech was expensive in this country (prices are falling). European cabinetmakers chose beech for their benches because it was stiff, heavy and cheap.

4. It should be readily available. Workbenches are great. The only thing greater than a workbench is all the great stuff you get to build on it. Don’t delay building a bench because you’re having trouble finding the wood.

5. It should resist denting. This is a bit of a minor point because I’ve worked on benches that dent easily. And it’s no big deal when they get dented because it won’t affect the quality of your finished work and you eventually work the dents out when flattening the top. To determine how dent-resistant a species is, check out its Janka scale rating.

6. It should be light in color. I wouldn’t enjoy working on an ebony bench. It would be really hard to see what I was working on. You’re often sighting things against your bench, such as when you peer down your plane’s sole to see if the iron is centered in the mouth. A light-colored bench makes this easy. Plus, the benchtop reflects light, making the shop appear lighter.

7. It should be easy to work and glue. Purpleheart and hickory get used to build masochist workbenches. You’re going to have to flatten the top of your bench some day, so make it easy on yourself, long-term.

So what woods excel in many of these categories? Plenty. In my neck of the woods, yellow pine, ash, white oak and red maple would all be outstanding low-dollar benches. (Especially ash. Thanks to the emerald as borer, ash is about as cheap as yellow pine these days.) Oh, and don’t be afraid to mix species. If you’re short on cash, make your base from a junk species and spend the money on the top. You can always replace the base.

Here are some other choices. A little pricer but still solid: white oak, white maple, birch and beech.

OK, but not my first choice: poplar, red oak, hickory (too hard to work).

Probably not, except in a pinch: walnut, cherry (too dark and a little soft), basswood (too soft), sycamore (too hard to work the quartersawn faces), and almost all the exotics (too expensive and sometimes difficult to glue).

So if the question about wood species is a red herring for bench builders, what do I think is the most important question about bench design? Here it is: How soon can you start building?

— Christopher Schwarz

We received our first load of books this week and are shipping them out with the Deluxe CDs (plus any DVDs you ordered). So if you ordered a book from us, watch your mailbox.

The books are autographed, of course. Two readers will receive “special” deluxe editions. Meaning, my kids asked if they could add a discreet smiley face to the title page (hope that’s OK).

One important thing I want to add to our Canadian and international customers is that we are still working out the shipping options to make them fair to everyone. Until then, if you are outside the continental United States just drop John Hoffman a line at John@lostartpress.com. He’ll take care of you.

Also, we’ll be posting some new classes and seminars on the site in the coming weeks. So do check back if you are interested in classes.

— Christopher Schwarz

In high school I played racquetball every day -- sometimes for four or five hours a at a time. But the funny thing was, no matter how much I played, I never got any better unless I was matched against someone who could crush me.

So I would always seek out friends and acquaintances who could wax the floor with me and my little white sweatbands. After playing them for a few weeks (or months), I would edge up on them gradually and (with patience) eventually beat them.

It turned out to be an excellent lesson for woodworking.

When I build and when I write, I’m happiest when I am working at the limits of my skill. Every project and every piece of writing should have some detail or structure that is tricky to execute. If I’m not improving, I’m rotting.

So it is with great trepidation when I build a project for Popular Woodworking’s “I Can Do That Column.” On the one hand, these projects aren’t improving my skills much. They are the simplest joints (glue and nails, generally) and the level of design is generally Shaker, Arts & Crafts or some other straight-line style.

On the other hand, I enjoy the heck out of building these projects. The Pleasant Hill Firewood Box shown here took me about five hours to build all told, from making the first crosscut on a miter saw to rounding over the lid of the kindling box with a block plane.

This weekend I began applying the finish to the piece and I tried to sort out some of this stuff. On the one hand, the project seemed like a waste. As I was building it, I was trying to explain why the column was so important to a couple of readers who came for a visit. That you need to give beginners a way to get started in the craft without forcing them to build a highboy out of the starting gate.

As I was explaining all this, I was getting a look from the readers. Either they were indifferent (they both do very high levels of work) or they were disappointed in me. I felt like I was rotting a bit.

But then something else happened. On Saturday I spent three hours finishing up the construction. I nailed the back and front in place (wood movement be darned). I added the hinged lid (it took 10 minutes to fit it perfectly the first time). And I detailed the carcase with a block plane, softening lines and making this reproduction look as much like the original as I could. In the end, every joint was to my satisfaction. And the lid fit like a glove.

As I drove home Saturday I felt something weird stuck in my beard. It was sizable, hard and stuck firmly. After some digging (and yelping like a little girl at one point), I pulled out a nugget of dried yellow glue that had obviously been stuck there for several hours without my noticing.

There, I thought, that was the point of the day. I had gotten so lost in the project that I hadn’t noticed putting a dime-sized drop of glue in my own beard for several hours. Yet, despite my inattention, I had built this project in record speed and with great precision.  

I had learned something I couldn’t quite my finger on. I flicked the dried glue to the floor of my car and turned my attention to the road ahead.

— Christopher Schwarz

When I open the book “With Hammer in Hand” about the Dominy workshop, it opens up to one of two places every time. Sometimes it opens up to the first page describing the anvils in the Dominy shop. This particular crease in the book’s binding must be the work of William Munsell Roberts, the previous owner of this somewhat rare tome. I don’t give two toots for anvils (unless they’re dropped on things).

The other place my book falls open is page 55 – the page that describes one of the Dominy’s magnificent workbenches that was in their workshop in East Hampton, N.Y., until the contents of the shop were relocated to the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum in Delaware.

This massive 18th-century workbench – 148-1/4” long by 29-1/2” high by 28-1/4” deep – looks nothing like the modern workbenches in woodworking schools, workshops and catalogs. There is no tail vise. There is no trestle base. No quick-release, shoulder or metal vises. Instead the workholding is dead-nuts simple. There is a huge twin-screw vise in the face-vise position. There is a sliding deadman used to support long boards on edge. And there’s a single-point planing stop.

This bench is – for me – the link between the Old World workbenches of Andre J. Roubo, Peter Nicholson and Joseph Moxon and the workbenches of today. The bench has a Roubo-style skeleton. The top is a massive 5-1/2”-thick slab of red oak supported on legs that look like they are small tree trunks. The legs are flush to the front edge of the benchtop, just like in Roubo’s illustrations. The planing stop is right out of Roubo. It’s big and wooden and adjusted with mallet taps.

The twin-screw vise and sliding deadman look like the workholding arrangement shown in Charles Holtzapffel’s book, published in England, on woodworking and cutting tools (I own a reprint of the 1875 edition).

In other words, the Dominy workbench was one of the most inspiring forms as I launched into my research for “Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use.” I had considered building a Dominy-style workbench, but I never could get enough details to answer all my questions. And, until earlier this month, I’d never even seen the thing in person.

Last Sunday after the Lie-Nielsen Toolworks Hand Tool Event in Philadelphia, I took off with a couple willing souls to the Winterthur museum. For me, this was a lot like my first visit to Graceland, but without a pair of bickering friends and a Mazda 626 with a dogmeat camshaft (I’ll save that for another blog entry on “Craftsmanship of the Jungle Room.”)

We got to the museum on a Sunday afternoon, took a tour of the furniture and then climbed the steps (I took them two at a time) to the museum’s gallery where the Dominy workshop is located.

I almost walked right by it.

The Dominy workshop, the most complete and preserved workshop for our country’s early history, is consigned to two behind-the-glass displays. What you could see behind the glass – peering through the simulated shop windows of the display – was intoxicating. But it was dimly lit and so far away that I began to despair. The photos in Charles F. Hummel’s book got me closer to the object of my intense desire.

I thought about trying to flash my press credentials to favor a closer look (perhaps a peek at the undercarriage of the bench), but it was late on a Sunday and the museum staff had their hands full with the regulars. So I took some photos to study and took consolation in one small fact.

My family sure will be pleased to hear that I won’t be building a 12’-long Dominy workbench – yet.

— Christopher Schwarz