One of the cool things about the Wortheffort school of woodworking is the workbenches. Shawn Graham, the brains and back behind the school, built enough for 13 students and the instructor. Almost all of the benches are very basic Roubo designs made from construction timber.
No tail vises.
Workholding is all done with leg vises (no garters!), small Moxon-style vises for the benchtops and holdfasts.
All the vises, including the leg vises, use wooden-thread screws, which I think Shawn made himself.
I feel right at home in this shop environment, and it’s fun to show students how versatile these simple benches are.
The only downside is the leg vises are all so new that they screech when you use them. When all the students started to clamp their work up simultaneously, it sounded like someone was clubbing the Vienna Baby Seal Choir.
— Christopher Schwarz
Today we will work like heck to get these chests done. This is a three-day class crammed into two days.
Whenever I build a workbench, I try to work with stock that is as dry as possible. But I’ve never shied away from wood at 15 percent moisture content (MC). Thick timbers can be tough to dry, and all of the benches I’ve built with slightly damp wood have turned out fine.
Turns out, I think I might be a little too conservative on moisture in workbenches.
When we built the French oak workbenches in Barnesville, Ga., this summer, we were shocked at the moisture content of the timbers. Despite the fact that the trees had been felled for more than 13 years, the numbers on the moisture meters were alarming.
My benchtop was 30 percent MC. Other benchtops were 60 percent MC, which was off the charts for our moisture meters.
But we had only one week to build these benches, and we couldn’t wait another 10 years.
My workbench is still wet by furniture standards. Most areas of the top and legs register about 15 percent MC, and my meter reads only 3/4” deep. My suspicion is the center of my 6”-thick top is much wetter. I suspect this because my holdfasts rust immediately when left overnight in a hole in the benchtop.
Despite all this, the top has not moved significantly enough to warrant a reflattening. Today I planed a bunch of 1/2”- and 5/8”-thick panels and it was clear the top was still in spec for this high-tolerance work.
The only evidence of shrinkage or movement in the top is at one of the four joints where the legs pierce the benchtop. While three of these joints are as perfect as the day I finished the bench, the top has shrunk about 1/32” compared to the dovetail and tenon in the front right corner.
Oh, and there hasn’t been any additional checking, and the single existing check in the top hasn’t increased in length or width.
To be honest, I had experienced more wood movement on Douglas fir and cherry workbenches of the same design.
We will see how the bench fares as it makes the transition to equilibrium MC. But my suspicion is that the thick nature of the timbers and the joinery will help to make a bench that settles in gently.
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.
Don Williams, the primary force of nature behind “To Make as Perfectly as Possible,” is a man of few vices but many vises.
He doesn’t drink, smoke, curse or even drink coffee. But the man will travel to the ends of the earth to examine pianomakers’ vises. This peculiar, beautiful and woefully undocumented form is featured prominently on H.O. Studley’s workbench. And so Don has spent weeks researching, restoring and examining original pianomaker’s vises.
He has been documenting his findings on his blog. Have you bookmarked it yet? You should.
2. If you want a French workbench but don’t have the machines or time to build it yourself, I’d like you to meet Mark Hicks of the Plate 11 Bench Co.
Mark took my campaign chest class at Marc Adams School of Woodworking this year. Not that he needed it – he runs his family’s furniture business in Ozark, Mo. This year, Mark has expanded his business to start making workbench kits.
If I were to buy a workbench, this is exactly how I would want it.
The parts come unfinished. All the joinery is cut. No vises. All you need to do is do the final fine-fitting, assemble the bench and then add the vises of your choosing. The bench comes in two heights (which can be trimmed to a wide variety of custom heights) and with two joinery choices when it comes to the joint that fits the top to the legs: a tenon, or the sliding dovetail/tenon in French benches.
Here are the specs:
Material: Kiln-dried 16/4 silver maple
Weight: 200lbs
Top Dimensions: 23” wide x 84” long x 3-3/4” thick
Leg Dimensions: 5-1/2” wide x 3-3/4” thick
Two standard leg heights: 38” (adjustable to 34”) or 33” (adjustable to 29”)
Leg Joinery: Bare Faced Tenon
Mark is still working out the pricing, but he thinks the base bench will be about $2,000.
He will have a booth at Woodworking in America and prototypes of his benches to show and sell. Do stop by, meet him and check out his benches.
If you can’t attend Woodworking in America, you can read more about the benches at his web site: Plate11.com.
