Thread: Wood Suggestions for Work Bench

My first “built” workbench which is still my current of 10+ years is four legs of 100 x 100 cypress and the top is two sheets of 18mm mdf laminated together by compression. (Read lay one on garage floor squirt lots of glue place second on top then stack everything on top)

I plan on building one from pine after reading about The Anarchist's Workbench – Lost Art Press

from that read the highlight points are your legs should be flush with the front to allow easier clamping, the bench must have weight enough not to move around when using hand tools and be not too wide that you can’t reach the back.

i will try to post the link to the free copy of the book from this forum. There are plenty of bench designs out there but this covers them all and drops it down to the all you need is...

cheers

here it is
Wood for workbench

I would say the workbench in the video was specifically designed for a fairly limited range of applications. Yes, it has a built in table saw but it is way too lightweight and flexible for hand tooling, and I can’t see how he would clamp anything down for glue ups or using portable tools. But, if you think it matches what you want go for it.

Mass and rigidity are good; make it as heavy as you can and brace it to burgery. Even if you only ever use lightweight hand power tools a rock solid work platform is your friend.

l’m currently on bench 3; made entirely from pine and encompassing all the elements I think I want in bench 4. Because it’s pine if I feel it would be improved with some major surgery I won’t worry about the cost and/or prettiness. I really wouldn’t spend good money on hardwood until you are practised enough to work with it and you have a more definite vision of what you want to construct.

Gday

A few will say but the only really big rule is you will need a lot of mass if you want to use hand tools. It is not so much that you're going to be beating it to death (although you might), but you want something that will not vibrate or bounce.

You also want plenty of the mass down in the legs as the last thing you want is it rocking or tipping if it is top-heavy.

Don't worry too much about getting it dressed. It will/should be abused. When you are set up and get going, smoothing the top is no prob.

If you go with structural pine make the legs really big. At least 90mm square. Frankly I would spend just a little more to get something a bit nice. Go to a big Bunnings and check out all of of the landscaping/deckbuilding supplies for ideas.

The 90mmx90mm Merbau posts you get for decks are a great option I used. At Bunnings you can get them to saw them roughly to length. They're absolute battleships. For my first build I then ganged them up and used a belt sander to square them all to consistent height. Get creative!