Building a workshop bench
/Not a showpiece bench but an immensely practical, low-maintenance workhorse
By Jude Woodside
The foundation of any shed is a bench and there are as many types of bench as there are sheddies. Among woodworkers there is a strong demarcation between the traditionalists who lean toward the European style of bench and the more practical antipodean types who remember the heavy benches from their schooling with a Record 52 1/2 quick-release vice on the left edge of the bench.
Any good bench should have a few fundamental characteristics: It should be flat and level; It should be sturdy; It should be solid; It should be able to withstand some rough treatment; Ideally it should be made of something easily resurfaced by planing, scraping or sanding; Made of material that won’t break your heart when it gets damaged by paint, glue, oil, dings, scratches and nail holes.
The following design meets all those criteria and it has the added benefit of being relatively cheap. This is not intended to be a showpiece bench but rather a shed workhorse, not flashy but immensely practical and a low-to-no-maintenance proposition.
Laminated
Laminated timber has been a preferred material for benches for many years. It is strong, solid and heavy. It can be made from almost any timber. The edge-on alignment and the glued lamination tend to increase the strength of the material. This bench is a case in point. It is constructed from offcuts of laminated timber beams imported for construction. The beams are often longer than needed and the offcuts can be anything up to 3m in length. Until now this material was dumped, but one company has come up with a novel recycling solution, turning the offcuts into workbenches.
The bench is constructed entirely from the laminated beam from the top down to the legs, rails, and stiles that are ripped and machined from the same material. The top is made from pine, mainly plantation-grown slash pine from Australia.
Beech or hard maple is the traditional material for benches in Europe and North America but both of these materials, while plentiful in their own regions, are prohibitively expensive here. There are advantages, too, in using a softwood in the bench material. It tends to be more forgiving and is easier to resurface. The numerous small nail holes that I have driven into my bench over the years have tended, by and large, to disappear. The laminated top has the advantage of stability. It is unlikely to warp, shrink or twist.
It does have some defects in the form of small knots but these can easily be filled with epoxy and sanded flush.
Height
The traditionally accepted ideal for workbench height is a surface built to a height where the worker can comfortably lay the palms of his hands on the surface with his arms at his sides. Some prefer the bench a bit higher on the basis that the old rule applied to a time where most work on a bench was carried out by hand and was considerably more physical. Power tools allow the bench to be slightly higher – helpful for those who have a tendency to suffer backache and depending on the type of work you are more inclined to do – but in general, the old rule is a good one.
The top
The benchtop itself is assembled from one 525 mm x 85mm section but it is possible to make it wider by adding a section. The material is available in a variety of widths from 295mm to 525mm and it could easily be joined to make any size tops. Its one disadvantage is weight. Even a relatively small section like this 1800mm x 525mm section is more than one man can comfortably handle but that also contributes to the stability of the piece. The legs have been made flush with the edges of the bench but set back from the ends to allow for clamping on the edges. There is no top rail as the laminate itself holds its shape well and so pieces can be easily clamped to any part of the bench. This bench incorporates a standard Record 52 ½ ED quick-release vice but it could as easily and more cheaply have a traditional face vice.
Legs
The legs were ripped from a 900mm piece of the 525mm benchtop material.
From that width, it is possible to cut six pieces of roughly 85mm square. These were then machined to 80mm square and the legs cut to length. The legs have been cut in this instance to 775mm which, with the benchtop depth of 85mm, gives an overall height of 860mm.
The leg construction consists of a simple through mortise and tenon for the top stile and a lapped joint on the base. The top rail is bolted through the cheeks but it could be glued and pinned for the same effect. The bottom joint was cut 160mm up from the floor and 80mm wide to a depth of 30mm. The legs were clamped together and the joint cut with a saw across all four at once. The waste was carefully pared away and test-fit with the side rail until the rail was flush with the surface of the leg.
The ends of the legs were treated similarly. With the leg top stiles cut, they can be fitted and the leg assemblies checked for square. Mark the position of the through-bolt in the centre of the cheeks. The bottom stile can be fitted and the bolt position marked.
Once the assembly is square, clamp both top stile and bottom stile in place and drill bolt holes. The bolts are held in hex drive threaded inserts. These are screwed into the hole with the aid of an Allen key cutting its own thread into the walls of the hole. The bolt is then threaded through it and tightened.
The two-leg assemblies are joined by a rail, again fitted via lapped mortise to the leg and butting up to the stile. Again the leg is clamped in position and the positions of the two connecting bolts marked and drilled, the hex key threaded inserts are screwed in and the piece fitted and bolted.
The bolts are carefully placed either side of the stile-connecting bolt. The bolt arrangement and the lapped mortise help to ensure rigidity and simplicity of construction. The bolts mean that the bench can be disassembled for transport at some point if necessary. They also allow the bench to be tightened as the timber dries out over time and shrinks.
Once the top is laid flat on the floor, the legs can be positioned. On this particular bench, the legs are positioned 150mm in from each end of the bench to allow for clamping work to the end of the bench, etc. The legs have been lag-screwed to the underside of the bench. A pilot hole of 10mm is drilled through both the leg and the top – take care to drill to the correct depth – and the lag screws fitted with a washer are bolted into place.
Installing the vice
Once the legs have been secured to the tabletop, the top can be turned on its side and the position of the vice marked out.
There are a number of methods of securing a vice to a workbench of this type. Ideally, the inner jaw should be flush with the edge of the bench and this can be achieved by either rebating the jaw to the depth of the wooden facing or rebating it completely and using the bench edge as the jaw facing.
Here the jaw is rebated to make the vice face-cover flush with the bench edge. The vice itself is fixed to the bench-top with lag screws. It could also be attached with machine bolts and the heads covered with wood plugs but, as the vice is unlikely to be removed too often, lag screws are equally good. In general, the vice will require a spacer.
The Record vice jaws are almost flush with the benchtop but it is advisable to set the jaws slightly lower and allow the sacrificial wooden vice face to align flush with the benchtop. A spacer from 19mm hardwood proved to be ideal. To provide the rebate for the vice face, a temporary routing jig, with support pieces clamped either side of the edge and at positions fore and aft to frame the cutout, allowed the rebate to be cut with the router and the material removed quickly.
After I cleaned up the corners with a sharp chisel, the vice was maneuvered into place and the positions of the bolt holes marked on the spacer material. I turned the bench on its face again, the bolt holes were bored and the inner jaw facing was fitted to the space.
To hold the facing in alignment, the vice was tightened to hold the facing piece between both jaws and the vice removed so the rear-facing could be screwed into place. The facing attaches through two screw holes in the rear of the jaw.
Once the facing is secure, the vice is slipped into place and checked for flush. It doesn’t hurt to have it sit slightly proud of the benchtop initially, so it can be planed to the top later. But it is wise to ensure that it is flush with the bench edge. The vice is then attached with the lag screws and the whole bench re-turned to the upright position.
Screwing vice face to the vice jaw.
Dogs and planing stops
The Record vice and others of a similar size usually have a dog attached to the outer jaw.
This can be very useful when used in conjunction with other bench dogs for holding work. The traditional bench dog has a flat face and a rectangular cross-section. It sits in a slightly angled hole that allows it to remain below the surface until required.
To machine holes of the correct dimension is time-consuming and would have meant cut-ting a piece off the top, routing the profile and re-laminating it to the bench. Fortunately, I have sourced a bench dog with a spring clip and a circular section. The dog fits in a 19-20mm hole.
Carefully measure where the dogs should go, ensuring the holes are parallel to the bench edge. Bore the holes with an auger at a slow speed and fit the dogs. It might be advisable, to begin with a Forstner bit to minimise tear-out at the start, depending on how fussy you are.
One very useful device on a traditional bench is the planing stop. These can be made by inserting a piece of timber through the bench which is held against the stile with a coach bolt and wing nut and is simply pushed up when needed.
Finishing
The finished bench is now sanded with a belt sander and oiled liberally with boiled linseed oil.
It helps to dilute the oil with a little turps at first and allow it to soak into the timber before removing any excess.
It can also be helpful to wax the top with a beeswax-based paste to help to repel moisture. The legs etc can be finished with polyurethane. After some years of work, it might be useful to belt-sand or rout the top surface flat but aside from that and the occasional oiling of the surface it is unlikely to require any-more care.
Bench planing stop
Addendum
A Shed reader contacted us and asked these questions about this project;
I am keen to build your workbench but have a few issues that may or may not enable me to complete the job. I have little experience other than what I did at school many years ago and although I thoroughly enjoyed woodworking at school I have not undertaken any major projects since then. Having said that I am keen and have some of the tools required.
My issues are-
What are the tools required to complete the project.
Is there a shopping list for the project, and lastly
Where could I purchase the laminated timber for the project.
I hope you will be able to help with these issues and appreciate any help you could supply.
Many thanks
The Shed replies:
You have enough experience to complete this project in fact it's a great learning project.
The most useful tool you need is an accurate square. If in doubt buy an engineer’s square from one of the engineering retailers.
All you need beyond that is a drill, a circular saw, a good chisel, and an eye for accuracy. Of course, it’s often easier if you also have a router, a table saw or even a mitre saw but they aren’t essential.
When I built my first bench, I didn’t possess much more than a circular saw and a router housed in a triton saw bench. You will also need a set of spade bits and a drill set.
Most of the accessories like the vice and the chisel stops came from Carbatec and I don't recall where we got the threaded inserts.
We didn’t do a shopping list for this bench and from memory I can’t recall everything we used. But you don’t have to use the threaded inserts, although you should be able to find them on line easily enough or check out Robertson and Sinclair.
Carriage bolts and lag screws will also do the job. Laminated timber can be found at a variety of outlets and very often they have a store of odd sized cutoffs that they happy to dispose of at cheap rates. These are usually offcuts from cutting beams to size. Again, Google is your friend, look for Laminated beams or Glulam.
You will have to determine the quantity yourself from the drawings, it depends on what size of bench you want. You could also use 100 mm x 100 mm or 75 mm x 75 mm for the legs and frame. That first bench I made is still in use 31 years later.
Jude Woodside