You can now order my newest DVD “Build a Sturdy Workbench in 2 Days” from Popular Woodworking for $24.99.
The two-hour video show you how to build a sturdy workbench using home-center materials and a benchtop made using solid-wood kitchen countertop from IKEA. It really can be built in two days – I built it in real time in the studio.
I’m not sure when the DVD will be released, but you can pre-order it here.
If you’d like to read more about the workbench, here are some notes on the bench.
— Christopher Schwarz
I saw the bench a week or two after you filmed this. It is quite stout and looks good!
Digital download purchased.
Electrician is wiring my shop as I write.
I start insulating Thursday, drywalling this weekend.
With this and the two-day tool-chest build in my quiver, it may actually appear — to the untrained eye of course — as if I know what I’m doing … in about four days.
Thanks Chris. Onward.
Hi Chris,
here´s andi from germany.
I downloaded the file yesterday. parallel to that vid, I´m reading your blue testament “Workbench”, which is a great book.
Two things I do not understand, cause maybe I´m a german boy who´s caught in the metric system.
You say, for the legs, you took 4”x 4” s, in german I think it´s about 10 x 10 cm. Then you glue them up and say, then they are about 6 ” wide ? where are the 2 ” es `? You plane and jointed them off ?
The second thing: How thick are the IKEA Benchtop´s ? In germany you only get 2,8 cm, what´s about a less more then 1 inch. And two of them would be 2 inches. That´s a little bit thinny I think.
But all in all, it´s a good homeworkers beginners projekt to build then, on that thing, “a real bench” 🙂
Thanks for your comment.
Andi from germany
http://www.alwaysworkingman.de
P.S. do you plan to come in the future to dictum germany, to build “new benches” ?
You would think that a 4×4 would be 4″ x 4″.
It’s not. It’s more like 3-1/4″ x 3-1/4″. Or 82mm x 82mm. So when you plane them up and glue them together, the legs end up 82mm x 165mm.
Our IKEA countertops are about 36mm thick. You might look around for thicker countertops from other suppliers.
And I won’t be teaching at Dictum this year. I’m taking the year off to write. I’ll be back in 2015.
Hope this helps.