Over at PopularWoodworking.com I have a new post on how (any why) I tooth my benchtop.
If you are a bench nerd, I think you’ll like this post.
— Christopher Schwarz
Category: Workbenches
A Backlash Against the French Bench
During the last year I’ve heard a lot of smack talk about the traditional French-style workbench, which many people simply call a “Roubo” because it is featured in “L’Art du Menuisier.”
In fact, my first drubbing came in 2005 when I built my first French bench. A prominent woodworking writer delivered this salvo: “That bench in Roubo was intended for joiners, people who did house carpentry. Not for cabinetwork. You have chosen the wrong bench to build.”
This is bullcrap.
Not just because I call it bullcrap, but because the archaeological record and the written record say it’s crap.
Roubo’s five-volume work isn’t just about house carpentry and house joinery. It’s also about carriage making, fine furniture, marquetry, parquetry, veneering, finishing and garden furniture. While Roubo certainly knew about other benches (he illustrates a “German” one in one volume), he chose to illustrate the classic French bench in almost every instance throughout all his books.
So yup (sarcasm fully engaged), this bench is good only for heavy work like this.
Or coarse work like this.
You’d only make sash or wainscot on it, like this.
No fine cabinetry would be built on it, especially nothing dovetailed.
The beauty of the French form of bench is it’s a blank sheet of paper. You can easily adapt it for any work – heavy, light or in-between. It is easy to build – you need to know only one joint, really. Beginners don’t need to learn to dovetail a skirt around the top or install complex vises. Heck, I worked for a year on the French bench without anything you would call a vise – just a crochet and holdfasts.
If you process stock by hand, it’s heavy enough for fore-planing. If you’re a router wizard, it’s an expansive deck of places to clamp things to – completely unobstructed.
If you are somewhere in-between these extremes, you will be fully satisfied.
The French bench has downsides. It requires more wood than some other designs. The pieces can be too heavy for some woodworker who work alone. You might have to glue up a lot of boards to make the top or search for a thick slab (which really are not hard to find).
But the bench works like crazy, I prefer it over every form I’ve worked on or built.
I understand that some woodworkers see benches like a hemline. This one is in fashion. Now that one. Ooh, no one builds benches like Ian Kirby’s anymore. And that’s fine. You can run down the design because it’s so ubiquitous. Or because I like it.
But don’t look like a fool and say the bench is for crude work only. The ghost of A.J. Roubo is likely to pay you a visit one dark night.
— Christopher Schwarz
Portable Workbench: Said & Done
Many of my students delight when I make a mistake or a misstep in class. Not because they are cold-blooded wankers, but because they like to know that all woodworkers screw up at times.
So let me say that these workbenches would be totally delightful to my students.
I lost a whole day when building the movable block for the the wagon vise. After cutting all the joinery, tweaking the blocks to a piston fit and creating all the joinery for the screw and garter it came time to make the dog hole.
I chopped it at the wrong angle – 3° slanting away from the other dogs instead of 3° the other way.
I also lost a day experimenting with different ways to affix the benchtop to a table. Fail, fail and fail again I did. Finally I came back to my original notion – angle iron – which worked brilliantly.
And making the little bench chihuahuas was an entire afternoon of stupid ideas accented by blunders, dead ends, two trips to hardware stores and – ultimately – a five-minute operation that created awesome little dogs.
Even though I have years and years of experience, building something new is never a perfectly orchestrated unicorn square dance.
But the benches are done – finished and functional. The story is written. The SketchUp drawing is sketched. The digital photos are processed and off to Popular Woodworking Magazine. I am ready for a beer or 12.
But the Frenchman calls. Zut alors.
— Christopher Schwarz
Another Workbench? Seriously? (Eyeroll) Wait, Two?
Several years ago during a breakfast with some woodworkers, I floated the idea of a workbench for the woodworker without a shop.
In essence, it was going to be like the Hammacher Schlemmer “Gnome Brand” of workbench – a nice piece of furniture that would unfold into a workbench and tool chest. But unlike the Hammacher Schlemmer bench, my design would be a bench that could be used for serious woodwork.
I was already making preliminary drawings. It was going to be a lot of fun to build.
In the end, I didn’t build that bench. Why? One of the woodworkers said the following thing while forking his scrambled eggs:
“Wow. That sounds like a lot to build for an apartment-dweller.”
Bingo. So I changed gears. This bench is that gear. Based on a historical example I’ve spotted in Europe and Australia, this bench will clamp to a sturdy table or countertop and give the woodworker a lot of functionality for something that is only about 32” long.
It will dovetail an 18”-wide case. It will hold almost any piece for tenoning. It will hold many reasonably sized pieces between dogs. It has square bench dogs, a wagon vise and a twin-screw vise that is like no other (details to come).
I made some small changes to the original design – simplifying the mechanism you use to clamp it to a stout surface, strengthening a couple points of the original that had become stressed during the last 50 years. And changing the material to maple – beech is hard to find at lumberyards in Kentucky.
I began the project yesterday and should be almost finished building a pair of these benches by tomorrow. One is for me – for traveling – and the other is for a customer.
More details in the coming days. And if you can wait a few months I’ll have an article on this bench in Popular Woodworking Magazine.
— Christopher Schwarz
One Tree, Which Tree, Will You Tell Me?
I want to make a workbench good,
But do not know what kind of wood.
If you would tell me the best tree,
I might not build workbenches three….
If you reveal which tree is best,
I could avoid a workbench fest.
Could I make it out of oak?
Or would I go completely broke?
Well…
You could make it out of pine,
And you will be completely fine.
Hmmmm.
But could I make it out of fir?
Would Master Klausz then call me “sir?”
Would walnut be an OK wood?
Would butternut be twice as good?
Could I make it out of elm?
Or would my friends be underwhelmed?
I could use my pile of birch
Might that leave me in a lurch?
Should I use the Southern yellow?
Or would I be a stupid fellow?
Might I use the mighty maple?
For this heavy workshop staple?
Should I seek the perfect ash?
On which to thrust my mighty… rasp?
Perhaps I’ll try a bench of beech
What benchery kings would that impeach?
Well…
Make your bench from fir or oak,
Or elm or larch or reclaimed spokes.
You can use some purpleheart
(But for it I won’t give a fart.)
Make your bench from any tree.
Just make it, make it, you will see.
Workbenches can be any wood.
It is a point not understood.
You can make it out of pine,
And you will be completely fine.
Hmmmm.
What about mahogany?
Would that be too bourgeoise?
Would sapele be the perfect timber?
Blah blah blah blah blah blah limber?
Would Osage orange be tough enough?
Or should I look for stiffer stuff?
How about some eucalyptus?
Or would that wreck my left meniscus?
Or perhaps some hearty hickory?
Would that be workbench victory?
I could procure some primo jarrah.
And working, don a wood tiara.
Would it be nuts to use padauk?
And would that bring a Schwarz rebuke?
I have a pile of curly cherry –
Or would that be just too dang hairy?
What about a torsion box?
With vacuum pads and filled with rocks?
Um.
I think I hear the other phone.
My cat is choking on a bone.
My kids are playing with a spear.
I have to go right now I fear.
But if you make it out of pine.
I know the bench will turn out fine.
— Christopher Schwarz. With thanks to Megan Fitzpatrick, Tim Henrickson and Narayan Nayar and apologies to Theodore Geisel.