Some of you might remember my “Death by Roubo” blog entry from March 2013, a grim but fascinating look at how to use your workbench for more than woodworking.
Well sometime this summer I got the idea to turn that image into a T-shirt with a slogan that was in questionable taste. So, with the help of Jeff Burks, I purchased two original copies of the April 5, 1903, edition of Le Petit Parisen, which had originally published the story and drawing. The old newspapers weren’t expensive.
Surprisingly, everyone I told the T-shirt idea to sensibly steered me away from it.
However, because I love this image so much, I took a high-resolution photo of it today and am publishing it here for you to enjoy. The detail in the drawing is quite good. Whoever drew the illustration was either familiar with workshops or simply paid good attention.
I love the little copper glue pot, the brace on the wall and the odd clamping contraption in the background.
But mostly I like the bench. Nice detail on the leg vise’s chop, sir. I salute you.
It’s OK, don’t get up.
Save the image to your hard drive, and you will be able to zoom in on this image to your heart’s content. If you don’t know how to save an image to your computer, click the link below to download the image.
During the last 15 years, I’ve met a lot of woodworkers who like workbenches, but I’ve met very few who delight in poring over paintings of old benches while in a noisy pub surrounded by rowdy friends and colleagues.
Yesterday evening as Richard and I were in a pub trying to decode a wack-a-doodle 1505 Nuremburg bench that was half Roman, half high-tech and half fantasy, a light kept flashing in our eyes. Finally, we looked up and saw a guy taking photos of us, shaking his head and saying something unprintable about a whale’s sex organ.
Richard grunted and went back to the computer screen.
It is not easy being a workbench nerd. And when you get two of them in a pub, the excitement can be somnambulistic.
For the last couple years I’ve admired the work that Maguire and his partner, Helen Fisher, have been putting out through their company, Maguire Workbenches. David Charlesworth and other English friends have told me how wonderful the benches are. But I’d never seen one in the ash until Friday.
They are seriously nice. Incredibly well-made. And overbuilt to perfection. (Example: In his custom designs that use slab tops, Richard doesn’t trust glue completely. So he adds a loose tenon to the edge joint that is drawbored into the mating edge. That is serious, fantastic overkill.)
Richard and Helen use ash for the most part in the benches and add traditional workholding, such as leg vises, wagon vises, twin-screws and the traditional English wood-jawed face vise. The surfaces are of a furniture quality with a nice smooth finish – all touches that bench customers appreciate.
The vises were designed by Helen and (until recently) entire made by her in their workshop.
What is interesting about Richard and Helen is that though they work to a very high level using some machines and mostly hand tools, they are interested in researching and building (for sale) common furniture forms that were built entirely by hand.
Stuff, Richard says, that “would be built by a farmer for his family.”
And so, as their workbench business has grown and matured in the last couple years to the point where they are building about 50 workbenches a year, Richard says they want to return to building more furniture using hand tools exclusively. And, he says, he thinks they can make a living at it.
“I’m interested in proper handmade stuff that is made quickly and in a wholesome manner,” he says. “I feel I can build a table as fast as a machine woodworker and for the same price. It won’t be the same table. And it will be done by working with the wood in the way it wants to be worked.”
If you don’t think that’s possible, then you probably haven’t met Richard and Helen at one of their few public appearances.
Richard left school at age 14, barely able to read and write, and took up apprenticing under his father in joinery, carpentry and furniture-making. Richard worked with his father for five years before setting out on his own.
“I hated every minute of it,” Richard says of the apprenticeship. “But he taught me everything I know. As I finished, I set up on my own making furniture. Once I started doing it my way I realized it had got into my blood.”
Helen, on the other hand, studied interior design, received her degree and began working at an architectural firm until the recession hit and she was laid off.
Neither had a business background, but they began their workbench building business in earnest together, working from their old shepherd’s cottage in rural Lincolnshire.
The business has grown steadily, and recently the two started a blog that shares many of the things they have learned about the craft and workbenches. They have started filming videos (many of them excellent), which Helen posts on the web site she designed for their company.
After talking to them amongst the benches they brought to the European Woodworking Show at the Cressing Temple Barns in Essex, England, it’s clear they are proud of the benches they make, though Richard is constantly trying to talk customers out of buying one of their benches and instead building one of their own.
And you can’t help but think that this remarkable pair is on the verge of something very interesting. They have the benches – beautiful, nearly perfect benches – to sell to customers. But it’s clear they are only at the beginning of the journey.
And as the pub closed down at 11 p.m. (as per usual) and the bartenders chased everyone out, Richard and Helen were still animatedly talking about their most recent adventure that just might become part of their future: old line-shaft equipment.
In any case, please be sure to subscribe to their blog. Whatever happens next is sure to be something to see.
An ironing board met a spindly manual-training workbench at a bar. Drinks were consumed. And nine months later, the Chandler & Barber patented “Handy Bench Cabinet” came into this world in 1902.
The “bench” is a testament to human will – that something so odd and ill-conceived could be patented and brought to market.
Observe the arrangement of the vise and the opening of the cabinet. A right-handed woodworker would pretty much slam his or her handplane into the rear of the cabinet with almost every stroke. There is an incredible amount of wasted space in the closed cabinet. And the lower shelves (12” x 18”) look sized for almost anything except woodworking tools. Where do the long planes go?
Other than that, very nice!
— Christopher Schwarz
Thanks to Jeff Burks for digging up this love child.
Beyond the great Atlantick flood
There is a region vast,
A country where no English foot
In former ages past:
A waste and howling wilderness,
Where none inhabited
But hellish fiends, and brutish men
That Devils worshiped.
This region was in darkness plac’t
Far off from heavens light,
Amidst the shaddows of grim death
And of eternal night.
For there the Sun of righteousness
Had never made to shine
The light of his sweet countenance,
And grace which is divine:
Until the time drew nigh wherein
The glorious Lord of hostes
Was pleasd to lead his armies forth
Into those forrein coastes.
At whose approach the darkness sad
Soon vanished away,
And all the shaddows of the night
Were turned to lightsome day.
The dark and dismal western woods
(The Devils den whilere)
Beheld such glorious Gospel-shine,
As none beheld more cleare.
Were sathan had his scepter sway’d
For many generations,
The King of Kings set up his throne
To rule amongst the nations. — Michael “Mr. Doomsday” Wigglesworth, 1662
Last night I finished the leg vise, drilled the holdfast holes and installed the shelf.
Now I just have to flatten the top (and yes, tooth it) and tend to some accessories:
1. A drawer to the right of the right leg.
2. A swing-out grease box.
3. A tool rack at the rear.
I hope to flatten the benchtop today because tomorrow this bench is going to work. I have a potential buyer for my 2005 Southern yellow pine bench stopping by early Friday morning.
