Category: Workbenches

Whenever I finish building a massive workbench in oak, I think: This thing is going to last a long, long time.

Hubris.

For proof, just ask Ryan Bowen, of Charlotte, North Carolina. Ryan had built a “lightweight Roubo” workbench about five years ago. It was built using almost no glue. All the joints are pegged and without adhesive.

The bench lived in his shop, a green outbuilding, along with his great grandfather’s tool chest. The bench was, according to Ryan, “easily my favorite tool.”

Last week a giant oak decided to fall on Ryan’s shop, destroying the entire structure. Then it rained on the interior contents for two hours. No one was hurt.

Check out the photos to see how the bench failed. “All in all I was not too upset,” Ryan wrote in an email, “and plan to rebuild with a new top.”

Ryan had some things to say about the damage:

1. “Assembling base joinery without glue has advantages. You can see how things broke apart cleanly – I would expect a lot more shearing and splintering with glued joints. Or perhaps it all would have held together…we’ll hopefully never know.
2. “I definitely should have done a through-mortise to the top and made a beefier top.  But (I was) young and poor with limited access to oak….”

There’s one more important lesson to share, and that relates to Ryan’s tool chest. I’m waiting on a photo and then we can discuss that.

— Christopher Schwarz

During the last 20 years, I’ve experimented with a lot of alternative (or odd) materials to build workbenches. Most worked fine. I think the raw materials are less important than their dimensions and the bench’s design.

Megan Fitzpatrick and I encountered laminated veneer lumber (in the video I erroneously call it LVL) used as a worksurface at a noodle restaurant near the Popular Woodworking offices. Of course, I’d seen LVL before in commercial construction. But the person who made these tables had cut slices of the stuff, rotated them 90° and glued them together. Basically, they had created a surface composed entirely of the edges of plywood.

So I helped Megan build a workbench using the stuff. It was featured on the cover of the November 2009 issue.

The benchtop has held up great during the last 11 years. It’s still as flat as the day we finished it. And it takes a beating, despite the fact that it’s only 2-1/2” thick. I wish we had time to rebuild the base. The video discusses the other modifications we’ve made to it over the years.

Some of the items shown in the video (these are not affiliate links)

• Gramercy holdfasts
• Lee Valley Quick-release Steel Vise (7” model)
• Veritas Quick-release Sliding Tail Vise 

— Christopher Schwarz

The only good thing I can say about the stupidness of venture capital is that it resulted in me obtaining this workbench.

This is a vintage Ulmia. I’m guessing it’s 1980s vintage based on what I know about the provenance of the bench (if you know for sure I’m wrong, please let me know). It was owned by American Woodworker magazine for years and then ended up in my hands via a series of binges and purges by the venture capital firm that owned F+W Media during its implosion.

One day the company vacated its bowels of a large amount of woodworking gear and projects that the American Woodworker staff had built. I was in the right place at the right time.

It’s a great bench. And the statement I make at the beginning of the video is 100 percent true (the statement about lasagne at the end of the video is also true). There are a few dumb things about the bench, but those are covered in the video (and are things I have fixed).

If you are ever offered one of these benches, and it’s in good shape (many are not), then go for it. Here in the Midwest, Ulmias tend to go for $800 to $1,500, depending on their condition. That’s a pretty good deal, all things considered.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. I know that the current company that owns Ulmia did not make this workbench. I haven’t seen any examples of Ulmias since the company was sold, so I don’t have any opinion on them. Sorry.

To be honest, the vintage Ulmia workbench in our shop is actually closer in design to Charles Holtzapffel’s workbench design than this bench. But I wanted to build a bench with a twin-screw face vise, and Holtzapffel’s bench was the closest analog to what I wanted.

But I wasn’t having Holtzapffel’s tool tray. Or the European tail vise. Or the drawer. Or the knockdown bolts.

And since building it in 2006, I’ve added a leg vise so we can swap back and forth between the twin-screw (for dovetailing) and the leg vise (for everything else).

In addition to adding the leg vise, we also added a Record planing stop, like the one on the Nicholson workbench. But other than that, the bench hasn’t been changed much.

It’s a great bench – a perfect size for our crowded workshop. And it’s usually the bench that most students grab first when they arrive (if they can’t get to my bench).

Some of the items shown in this video:

• Record planing stop. An antique from Patrick Leach.
• Benchcrafted Classic Vise and Crisscross.
• Quick-release Steel Vise from Lee Valley (the 10-1/2” version)

— Christopher Schwarz

This was the first slab-top workbench I built, and I made it entirely by hand (save for one long rip when I defaulted to the band saw because I thought I might pass out).

The bench’s size was dictated by the wood that was available, which is why it’s 18-1/2” wide and less than 6’ long. You work with what you got. It’s a good bench for an apartment, but its small stature is its biggest weakness.

The other fun part about the benchtop was that the cherry had rotted a bit, and so I stabilized it with epoxy, which I tinted with black iron filings. This was in 2010, and I had no idea that epoxy and rotted slabs would ever be a thing. And then Roy Underhill, decided to take a whack at it.

 

If you are interested in reading about its construction, Popular Woodworking has been vacating its vaults of all the plans we built up there through the last 20 years. They’ve made it a free plan, which you can get here.

If you are going to make your own version, make the top 22” to 24” wide and a full 6’ or 7’ long. And skip that stupid door below (it wasn’t my call).

Some products shown in the video. These are not affiliate links.

• Benchcrafted Classic Vise and Crisscross.
• Sheldon quick-release vise
• Millers Falls planing stop from Patrick Leach

— Christopher Schwarz