Visit my blog at Popular Woodworking Magazine here for a full-resolution version of the full plate from the above detail. And it’s not a discussion on man-boobs. Promise. (Look at those! Wow.) Maybe that’s not a man?
— Christopher Schwarz
Visit my blog at Popular Woodworking Magazine here for a full-resolution version of the full plate from the above detail. And it’s not a discussion on man-boobs. Promise. (Look at those! Wow.) Maybe that’s not a man?
— Christopher Schwarz
When I plan a new woodworking class, I have to resist all optimism when it comes to how long a certain task will take.
It takes me a day and a half to glue up a top for a Roubo workbench by myself. For a class, I have to double that time (at least). It’s silly to expect the students to be as fast as I am, or be accustomed to being whipped like dogs, or even willing to work with fellow students.
So when I teach a workbench class I cross my fingers that we will get all the tops glued up (with their mortises and planing stops complete) by late Wednesday evening. With that one special student finishing up Thursday before lunch.
This class at the Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking absolutely blew the doors off the previous record time for building workbench tops by 24 hours. At 2 p.m. on Tuesday, all the tops were glued up and done.
At the moment they cruised to victory I was trying to process 500 pounds of leg material. So I did the only sensible thing. I bought them all beers and let them hang out all afternoon fiddling with their vise hardware.
Why were they so fast? It wasn’t special machines or a super-abundance of clamps – we ran out of clamps several times. The material was the same as always. As was the bench’s design.
The only answer: hard-working students.
My hat is off to you, dudes.
— Christopher Schwarz
There are times that I want to think I have become a better teacher during the last 20 years I’ve been a woodworking and writing instructor. But then I always discover the real reason for that feeling.
Today we started a new workbench-building class at the Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking, and I was surprised how much progress we made during only six hours of work. We will be done with the workbench tops tomorrow – definitely ahead of schedule (but don’t tell the students that; I’m telling them we are already two days behind).
For a fleeting moment I thought I had finally figured out a way to organize every task and explain it so it was efficient and inevitable.
Then I looked at the notes I had written down when I’d interviewed the students at the beginning of class.
These guys were not newbs. We have a former instructor at North Bennet Street School, former model makers, people with art degrees involving shop, and amateurs who had been at it for 20 years.
Really, these 12 guys don’t need me. I’m just there to make sure it all gets done in a week and to fix any minor missteps. And if we fall behind, I get to start yelling in a German accent.
I’m OK with that. It should be a fun week. And I also get to eat at Frank Pepe’s Pizza about 10 times.
Here’s a tip if you are building a bench using a laminated top: Borrow a friend’s old biscuit joiner – there are millions of them out there that aren’t being used. If you are gluing up your top alone, the biscuits will help align the boards and save you hours (maybe days) of work.
— Christopher Schwarz
The Nicholson-style workbench is a great choice for a woodworker who is short on time or materials – I can usually build one of these benches in half the time of a French bench and this English form requires half the materials.
Unless you have narrow wood.
This last week a group of us at the New English Workshop birthed 10 new Nicholson-style workbenches during a class held at Warwickshire College. After five days of work, we got all the benches assembled and ready for final clean-up and vises.
That’s exactly how long it takes to get a French-style workbench assembled in a classroom. What happened? Why weren’t we sipping sloe gin and eating meat pies on Wednesday evening while sitting upon 10 finished benches?
The Nicholson benches I have built used 2x12s. The top is two 2x12s glued on edge – that is the only panel glue-up. For this class, we couldn’t get our hands on any primo dimensional stock for the benches, so we used ash that was ripped down to about 6-1/8”.
So we had to glue up the top from four boards. The aprons were two boards. Some internal bits also had to be glued into panels. As a result, we spent two entire days gluing up panels and truing them up. And that’s why we barely squeaked by late on Friday afternoon.
The lesson here is to use dimensional 2x12s for a Nicholson bench. Otherwise, you negate the time-saving advantage of this classic English form.
— Christopher Schwarz
Combining a workbench with tool storage is always a balancing act. Here’s a solution I have not seen in the wild (though some have proposed it).
It’s a workbench where the back half of the benchtop (15” x 102”) lifts up to reveal a shallow tool well. Though I’ve not worked on a bench like this, I suspect it has these plusses and minuses:
So I think it’s clearly workable. If I were to build a bench like this, I would consider making the lid in two or three hinged sections. That, however, could create some problems with flattening the top and keeping all the bits in line.
From studying the photos, the person who built the bench clearly was skilled. Check out the mitered dovetail on the shoulder vise and the filleted ovolo on the end of the vise. I suspect the painted boards that fill the base were a later addition – they don’t seem in character with the remainder of the workmanship.
My favorite detail is they are using a marking gauge as one of the dogs for the tail vise.
According to the Craigslist ad, the top is 113″ long x 44″ wide. The top is 34” from the floor. The base is 77″ long. Thanks to Gerald Yungling for pointing this one out.
— Christopher Schwarz