When I travel with some of my old-school workbenches, it looks a bit like a 19th-century British caravan to India. Since 2005, I’ve strapped my French Workbench into the bed of a tiny Toyota Tacoma pickup truck. I’ve driven it across town with its hinder hanging out the back of a Honda. And I’ve crammed the English Workbench into two too many mini-vans.
These workbenches don’t knock down flat for shipping and weren’t designed to. Society was a lot less mobile when these benches were in favor. And while I prefer these workbenches the way they are – built as one monolithic structure – sometimes you need to build your workbench so it knocks flat.
So I’ve written an additional 10-page chapter that covers bench bolts and other systems of making your benches knock down flat into five pieces. Anyone can download this chapter here, for free, whether you’ve purchased the book or not. (The chapter is about 3.5 mb, so you will have an easier time if you do this on a computer with a broadband connection.)
The chapter discusses the pros and cons of the various ways to make your workbench’s base knock-down, including:
1. Solid-wood tusks driven into through-tenons that pass through mortises in the legs.
2. Drawbore pins
3. Lap joints secured with screws or lag bolts
4. Hex-head bolts, bench bolts or threaded rod.
Then I detail how to install the two tricky bits of hardware: hex-head bolts and the Veritas Special Bench Bolts, which I quite like. In addition to discussing knockdown workbench bases, I also discuss some of the different strategies for attaching the top to the base so you can easily remove it.
There might be a little surprise in here for you if you’ve read my book. All of benches feature very stout joinery, yet, I think it’s quite possible to really overdue it when it comes to attaching the top to the base. Most people focus on controlling racking forces when they attach the top. In a well-designed bench, you really should be more concerned about shear forces instead – and those are much easier to manage.
Dec. 20 update: Typos have been fixed in the new file below.
A couple readers have pointed out a problem with page 81 of “Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use” (Popular Woodworking Books).
The two columns of text on that page were transposed during the layout process, and I didn’t catch the mistake before we went to the printer. All the text is there, and the story will make sense if you read the right column of text first and then the left.
Of course, that’s not a good solution in my book (pun intended).
So I’ve prepared a corrected page that you can download, print out and stick in the book if you like. The page is in pdf format. If anyone else has any errors they have spotted, please e-mail them to me and I’ll see that they are corrected in future editions (assuming that there are future editions).
If you’ve read my book, my blog or my magazine, it’s easy to get the impression that I hate benches that have a lot of storage beneath the benchtop. I don’t know how many times I’ve written about how a bench that looks like a kitchen cabinet works about as well as a kitchen cabinet when you need to clamp something to its top.
But that’s not the whole story. I think that you can add some significant storage to a bench and still make it just as useful as a stripped-down Roubo workbench (the hulking French bench on the cover of the book).
If you have a lovely French model in your shop, add a shelf inside the bottom rails. Then add three drawers below that shelf, just as Andre Roubo shows in his illustration of a German workbench. Adding these drawers is on my to-do list, as is making the sliding leg vise shown in the same engraving.
If you have the English bench (or are thinking of building one), here are a couple suggestions. Audel’s Carpenter’s Guide suggests making a bench with a top board that can be removed so you can stow the tools in the cavity below.
That’s OK, but that middle board might jump around when you are planning panels. (Carpenters don’t plane as many panels as cabinetmakers. Heck, they don’t plane anything these days.) So I’d consider making only one half of that board removable. Pick the end of the bench where you don’t handplane panels.
Another option is to build a drawer into the front apron, as the ingenious airplane makers did in this shot from the Filton shop in England. That is how I would add storage to an English bench – plus I’d add drawers at the bottom below the apron as well, as shown in a drawing in George Ellis’s “Modern Practical Joinery.”
None of these solutions will change the way the bench functions, but they sure will give you a place to store your bench chisels and layout tools.
When the first copy of “Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction and Use” arrived on my desk from China via airmail, I couldn’t stand to even look at it. I stuck it in my satchel (which my wife fondly calls the “manpurse”) and took it home.
Before dinner that evening, I took the book out and showed it to the kids. Maddy, 11, took the book and started paging through it.
“Wow. This is great dad,” she said. “Will you autograph it?”
My heart swelled a bit. I had impressed my daughter that I was an author. But something didn’t quite seem right in her tone of voice.
“Why do you want me to sign it?” I asked.
“So I can sell it on eBay,” she said. “Someone might pay me extra if you sign it.”
Ah, Maddy, my little bourgeois capitalist. Since then a few other people have weighed in on the new book. A few people have said the book is a bit of a rehash of principles I’ve discussed on my blog and in print. That’s fair to a degree. My blog has been a place where I explore ideas in rough-draft form. The book is the summation of more than a decade of ideas and experiences, polished and complete. Well, that was the plan.
This week I got my first review on Amazon, which sells the book at a very competitive price, I might add. I don’t know the reviewer personally, but he read the entire book and grasped the message I was trying to transmit. Below is that review in its entirety, reprinted with the permission of the author.
By the way, we now have plenty of the books in stock (after struggling to keep up with demand). If you’d like to order one that is signed and comes with a deluxe CD, you can visit our store.
— Christopher Schwarz
5.0 out of 5 stars
A truly remarkable woodworking book
November 17, 2007 By Landscape W. Shipwreck (Island J, Brigstocke Township, N. Ontario)
As an avid reader of Christopher Schwarz’s various articles and columns in woodworking magazines, I’ve been awaiting the publication of this book with anticipation. Now that I’ve read it I have to say that it’s better than I expected, and my expectations were very high.
I’ve read a number of books and articles on workbenches (notably the ones by Lon Schleining and Scott Landis, which are valuable for what they are: surveys of various styles of workbenches, with info on how to build a few of them). This book is different. Not just a little different. Radically different.
Schwarz is not just a good writer. He is an extremely good writer, vastly better than the majority of writers about woodworking; better than most writers, period. He is not merely capable of explaining things clearly, or of organizing his text coherently. His writing is actually enjoyable to read. He has the ability to combine highly technical information with a kind of narrative structure, within which personal experience, historical research and theoretical conceptualization come together almost seamlessly. One could describe the book as almost an essay in the classical, Montaignesque sense: a personal, spiraling account of a particular subject, whose compelling structure takes the reader along on a wide-ranging voyage of discovery, and makes the reader a companion of the author as he works out his own thinking. However, this should not be understood as saying that the book is in any way vague, for it isn’t. I mean to underline its powerfully engaging quality. I believe somebody who wasn’t a woodworker, who had no plans whatsoever to construct a workbench, would enjoy reading it.
Schwarz is also a gifted scholar and theoretician, a trait not typical of woodworkers, of writers about woodworking. The evidence of his thorough research and profound thought on his subject abounds in the book. His conceptualization of the workbench as a tool for holding lumber so that its 3 different surfaces (edges, faces, and ends) can be worked is a recognition that you won’t find anywhere else, and one that animates the entire book. It may sound simple, even obvious, but so does the second law of thermodynamics.
The book provides designs and construction overviews of 2 very different benches, which may seem a paltry number of options. It is not. Schwarz has distilled years of research and bench-building into these 2 designs, and offers plenty of options along the way as to how one might alter them to suit one’s own purposes. The illustrations are abundant, clear and useful. Numerous sidebars provide detailed and helpful insight into a variety of sub- or side-topics (eg. Find a source for yellow pine; Pattern-maker’s vises: friend or foe?; The Stanley No. 203 – better than a peg). The index is extensive.
Anybody familiar with Schwarz from his hand-tool courses and DVDs knows that he is a formidable woodworker and teacher. Those qualities resound through this book, as does his engaging ability to be personal, as does his earnestness, as does his good humor. I’ve always learned easily from him, and this book continues that trend.
The first bench I ever built was from an article of Schwarz’s called “The $175 Workbench,” published in Popular Woodworking in 2000. I still have it, and use it every day. I will be building another one soon, using an adaptation of one of the designs outlined in this book; this book which will accompany me along the way, like a friend. Perhaps this sounds a bit loopy, but read the book and tell me you don’t share the feeling.
Reader Robert Monetti writes: Loved your presentation on workbenches, and now I am inspired to design and build my own. I know you can’t believe this, but the only information that is missing is: What are the best shapes for dog holes, round or square? I think square would be better for offering more friction but are direction limited when using clamping dogs.
If round, what diameter? If square or rectangular, what length and width? It would also be helpful as to there location and the orientation of rectangular holes.
Give me answers to these questions and I am on my way local mill house.
— Robert Monetti
Robert: Your questions will fetch a variety of valid answers. After working with both round and square dogs, I have my preferences. But both systems – round and square – work and work quite well. That said, here’s my argument.
I like 3/4”-diameter round dog holes. They are simpler to install during construction of your bench and even after construction. Round dog holes handle a wide variety of modern workbench accessories: hold downs, holdfasts, Wonder Dogs and the like. And you can turn the dogs 360° to clamp odd-shaped pieces.
The downside to round dogs is that they are usually brass or other metal, which can be dangerous to your tools. You can make wooden round dogs (use a tough wood), but I have used metal round dogs for more than a decade with only one minor incident to report.
Place the Dog Holes
So where do you put your dog holes? In general, I like to bore as few as possible. I have a couple dog holes in my benches that I never use. They are, after many years of disuse, like an unfortunate tattoo. They seemed like a good idea at the time. And why they don’t hurt much, they don’t add anything and are a reminder of an evening of wild boring (if that oxymoron is possible).
I use two lines of dog holes. One is for an end vise and one is for holdfasts. If you have an end vise (such as a tail vise), then bore a long line of dog holes near the front edge of your benchtop. Typically, this line of holes is located between 2” and 6” from the front edge. I like 4” – which allows me to clamp a 8”-wide board in the center. I have an 8” power jointer, so this makes sense for me.
I place these holes on 3” centers or so. Closer together is better for this line of dog holes because closely spaced dog holes will prevent you from screwing and unscrewing your tail vise as much.
The rear line of dog holes is different. It is mostly for holdfasts, and their spacing is determined by how far the pad of the holdfast is from the shaft. If this distance is 8”, than placing your holes every 16” (maybe a little less) allows you full coverage along the rear of your bench.
This line of holes should be located about 6” or so from the rear edge of your bench. That will allow you to rotate your holdfasts for a variety of holding situations. That should get you started.
A couple readers have pointed out a problem with page 81 of “Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use” (Popular Woodworking Books).
