Traditional Workbench 2.pdf

Building a Traditional Workbench

By Keith S. Rucker

e-mail: krucker@friendlycity.net

This work can be found on the Internet at: http://pages.friendlycity.net/~krucker/Bench/index.htm

This work may be freely reproduced for personal and or educational purposes as long as it is reproduced in its entirety and nothing,

including this copyright, is omitted. However, this work may not be published (in any media) without the written consent of the

author.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents.......................................................................................................................................... 2

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 3

The Design .................................................................................................................................................... 4

The Top Design ........................................................................................................................................ 5

Bill of Materials - Top ................................................................................................................................ 6

The Base Design........................................................................................................................................... 7

The Lumber ................................................................................................................................................... 8

Milling the Lumber......................................................................................................................................... 9

The Top Slab............................................................................................................................................... 11

The Dog-Hole Back..................................................................................................................................... 12

Mathematical Calculations:..................................................................................................................... 14

Making the Dog-Hole Strip .......................................................................................................................... 16

Making the Dog-Holes ............................................................................................................................ 17

Cutting the Notch .................................................................................................................................... 19

Cutting the Dovetail Pin .......................................................................................................................... 19

Gluing the Dog-Hole Strip to the Top ..................................................................................................... 20

The Dog Hole Slot Cover........................................................................................................................ 21

The End Caps ............................................................................................................................................. 22

The Left End-Cap ................................................................................................................................... 22

The Right End Cap ................................................................................................................................. 23

Mounting the End Caps .......................................................................................................................... 24

The Tool Till ................................................................................................................................................ 25

The Tool Till Apron ................................................................................................................................. 25

Tool Till Bottom ....................................................................................................................................... 26

The Ramps ............................................................................................................................................. 27

The Bottom Spacers ................................................................................................................................... 28

The Front Vise............................................................................................................................................. 29

Front Vise Spacer Block ......................................................................................................................... 29

The Front Vise Face Block ..................................................................................................................... 30

Boring the holes in the Face Block ......................................................................................................... 30

Boring the holes in the bench ................................................................................................................. 31

Preparing the Bench Face ...................................................................................................................... 32

Installing the Vise Hardware ................................................................................................................... 33

The End Vise............................................................................................................................................... 35

The Face Piece....................................................................................................................................... 35

The Front Jaw ......................................................................................................................................... 36

The Rear Jaw.......................................................................................................................................... 38

The Back Runner .................................................................................................................................... 38

Assembling the End Vise........................................................................................................................ 38

Fitting it up .............................................................................................................................................. 39

The Dog-Hole Cover............................................................................................................................... 41

The Guide Block ..................................................................................................................................... 42

The Bench Runner.................................................................................................................................. 44

The Front Guide Block............................................................................................................................ 44

Mounting the Top Caps .......................................................................................................................... 47

The Base ..................................................................................................................................................... 51

Flattening the Top ....................................................................................................................................... 55

Finishing the Top......................................................................................................................................... 56

Details ......................................................................................................................................................... 57

Introduction

If you are going to use hand tools in your woodworking, perhaps the most important tool to have

is not the tools themselves but a good bench to do your work on. When I first started to set up

my shop, I had only been out of school for a little over a year, been married a little less than a

year and had just bought a new home. To help spell my situation out, we were poor. Even

though the finances were not the best in the world, I began to accumulate a few basic tools and

began making some of the much needed furniture in my new home. My first workbench was

pretty simple. When we first moved into our new home, the previous owners had left behind a

crudely made puppet stage, which was actually just several 2x4's screwed together and painted

white. Having no need for a puppet stage in my new "shop" (the two car garage on the front of

my house), I disassembled the puppet stage and reassembled the lumber into the frame of a

bench. Nothing fancy here mind you, I just made a basic frame and put it all together with

screws. The top was made from some scrap 2x6's that were in the burn pile of a new house

that was being built down the street from mine (I did ask the contractor before taking them).

The 2x6's were again screwed down top and presto, I had a bench. A couple of scrap pieces of

plywood made a shelf underneath to stack junk on. A couple of years later, a front vise was

bought and added to the bench.

It was not a pretty bench and it was not really a great bench, but it was the only bench I had. As

my woodworking improved and I started using more and more hand tools, I started to realize

that my thrown together bench was not good enough. Planing was particularly a pain. First,

there was no good way to hold a board while planing. I screwed a couple of stops on the end of

the bench for boards to hold against while planing but there was nothing on the other side to

hold it tight. And, when I was planing, the whole bench racked back and forth resulting in much

wasted energy. The more work I did on this bench the more I realized I needed a new one.

Shortly before my daughter was born (July 1997), I ordered a copy of "The Workbench Book" by

Scott Landis. The book arrived just a few days before my daughter did so as I was spending a

lot of time in the hospital waiting to go home with my new little bundle of joy, I spent many an

hour reading my new book (Hannah, my newborn daughter, spent most of this time sleeping

anyway so I had to do something to keep my busy). I must have read that entire book cover to

cover at least twice before going home.

I spent the next three years thinking about my bench and saving what I could so that I could

build one right. After three years of planning, I finally came up with a bench I think I will like.

During that time, I had the opportunity to actually do work on several different types of benches

to see what I liked and didn't like. The result of all of my pondering on the subject was to build a

pretty traditional bench. The following collection of pages is a continuing saga of the step by

stop process I went though to get it done. As I go along, I will discuss what I have learned along

the way so that if you ever decide to build a bench, hopefully you can learn from my mistakes.

The Design

After many years of using a totally inadequate bench for hand tools, I finally decided that the

time had come to build a "real" bench. After no telling how many hours of thinking and

sketching, I finally decided on a pretty traditional design. My bench, will basically be pretty close

in design to the Frank Klausz bench that has been well documented in both "The Workbench

Book" by Scott Landis as well as in Fine Woodworking issue 53 (July/August 1985).

The main difference between my bench and Franks is the front vise. Everything I have ever

read that Frank has written about his bench as well as what he told me while personally talking

with him about it at a weekend workshop, Frank is adamant that the front vise should be of the

"Dog-Leg" style. While it may work great for Frank, I just do not like that kind of vise. I have

had the opportunity to work on one for a while and it just did not suite my work habits. Perhaps

that greatest thing I do not like about the Dog-Leg vise is that it sticks out of the front of the

bench, always getting in the way. It is also weaker by design. I decided instead to go with a

plain front vise, where the front of the bench actually serves as the back of the vise. The only

other differences in my bench and Franks is the dimensions. The only reason I changed them

was to better fit my shop. While I would love to have a bench that is 7' or 8' long, 6' was the

maximum length that would work in my space. I also made my bench a little wider than Frank's,

about three inches wider - not sure if this is good or bad, only time will tell.

The Top Design

Here is the plan for the Bench Top. Also below is a copy of the bill of materials for the

workbench top. Again, this bill of materials is a bit rough right now but final dimensions should

not change much.

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