Thread: Workbench Beginings

Welcome Mr Big.
I would make a solid woodworking bench with an additional removable top that can be used for the other pursuits. Stop the diff dings or oil spills.
The dog holes should be spaced slightly less than the maximum opening/ adjustment of your movable jaw/dog/clamp.
The bench I'm building has the legs flush with the front face of the top (link in sig) and uses mortise and tennon joints but do a search on bench builds and have a read of some old threads. Theres a wealth of information on this site.
There is some good information on bench height in here

OK so after having a look around at many other bench designs, I've had a rethink of what my bench will end up looking like. For te frame I thinking of going with a torsion box style frame as this seems to be a little bit more forgiving in terms of assemby and accuracy and proabably a better proposition as I don't have a workbench to use when building my workbench. The other benefit here is that it will effectively be a knockdown design so I can mvoe the bench if I every need to.

The other chang I'm making is that the bench will be going on castors as realistically assessing my location having something I can move into the middle of my garage for use will be much more functional than something stuck over in the corner.

I've attached a quick sketchup model Of what I basically think the bench will look like to give you an idea of what I had in mind. The main overhang is where I would mount face vice.

Hey mate,

Have a look at Christopher Schwarz book "workbenches- from design and theory to construction". I just started reading it and it's excellent! Highly recommended. He covers some of the questions you've asked and a lot more.

Andy

Thanks for the feedback so far, and it looks like I have two issues to sort out.

1. How to move the bench - this bench will sit in the corner of my garage and I would like to be able to move my car and put it in the middle when I am working, although perhapsI can live with the corner for most tasks. Lockable castors seem to not live up to their expectations especially for hand planning based on comments on the forum

2. clamping for working on all sides of a board or piece of work - I believe I can do this with only a single vice on the left of the workbench as long as I add a sliding deadman to the front and ensure that the legs are flush with the edge of the bench. I think I have this one covered, and I'll try to work it into the sketchup model soon.

So any thoughs on the first point would be appreciated.

Thanks
Dave

Have you read this thread re moveability?

Well i've finally made my decisions and started work on the bench. 8lengths of 2.4m structural pine and 4 threaded rods and I can make a start.

Facing the problem of needing a bench to build a bench to build a bench i've made use of my sister in laws old study table that has yet to make the council clean up.

After a few.short weekend sessions I have some completed frames for the base of the bench. Next step is to glue on some ply sheeting to the frame and assemble the bASE. We'll see how long that takes.

I.ll post up the completed frame when I get the cAMERA working again.