Work bench design: Well made?

[krw]

These are pretty nice and quite a bit cheaper.

Other variations are available (or at least were).

[J. Clarke]

The local supplier is asking 45 for Cocobolo and 28 for teak.

[Spalted Walt]

As are the Grizzly

[DerbyDad03]

I bought this...

..to make this:

(The base is a repurposed hutch)

[Bob_S]

Dead links ?

You are correct. Well they have been there for a number of years and Bernie has certainly made changes. I emailed him.

I only checked that the page was still active before posting but did not click on the links...sorry.

Bob S.

[Keith Nuttle]

I did a search on Hunt family work bench and came up with this site. It appears to be the same as in the previous post

[Leon]

But you are leaving out that this top is a manufactured product, not just raw wood.

[Jack]

I think the whole bench is rather dumb. I guess if you planned on parking a house, large elephant or full cement truck on the top, it would be OK, but basically, it's WAY over built for a wood shop, and really over built for an assembly table.

Right off, I think a top made of construction grade 2x6's, edge glued is more than enough. I have no clue why anyone other than an elephant mechanic would need a 2x6 face glued top? Don't forget space for a wood vice or two. Might be a good idea to get the vice first, and build the top to suit the vice.

Second, I don't like benches with open middles. Much better to fill it with drawers which give you a place to store stuff, other than on the top. You know, a place for everything and everything in it's place.

Simple 2x4 construction is more than any wood shop should need.

The very first thing I built when I built my shop was the work bench. I made the top from 2x4's ripped into 2x2's because I wanted a butcher block look. I never did that again, I would now simply use 2x6's edge glued. I figured the top could easily be replaced if it got too banged up, being cheap fir and all that. I never replaced or even refinished it. It has almost 50 years of heavy use and abuse, and I wouldn't replace it for anything, it's my shop history and sentimental to me. It does look better as Butcher block, but that's not needed and the way I did it was a LOT of work.

I built all the drawers and made them too small for the case, thinking I didn't want them to swell and jam, because that's what happened to an old bench my Dad had. Damn drawers would stick in the summer. I learned now how to better fit drawers. These have a little sloppy fit. I would not have my main bench w/o drawers. All my tool benches have drawers and or cabinets. Do it that way the first time if you are a wood worker, you'll thank yourself later.

Here are a couple of pictures of my bench after about 40 some years of abuse. I could build it a bit better now, but it is solid as the day I made it, and it taught me a lot about case work.

I'll say this again, you need a place for everything, and everything will get put away, and not get lost. Build drawers, drawers and more drawers. Divide the drawers up so things have their own place in the drawers.

Oh, make the height the same as your TS top so wood can be supported, always a good idea.

[russellseaton1]

I suppose it depends on what kind of woodworking you do. If you use the be nch as a table to hold up wood you are cutting, gouging, sanding with a pow er tool, then its strength isn't too important. A kitchen table with a vis e bolted to it would be plenty. Sawhorses with a sheet of plywood on top w ould be adequate too. I can imagine an edge glued top of 2x6s would be abo ut like a trampoline if you tried to chop mortises in a table leg. The woo d would bounce a foot into the air via your edge glued 2x6s. Whereas face glued 2x6s would have the mass to absorb mortise chopping.

I hear this comment many times. My table saw top and workbench top are sev eral inches different in height. They are also about 15 feet apart. Table saw in one half of the basement and workbench in the other half. Both are much too heavy to drag close to each other to allow the bench to serve as an outfeed. I suppose people who have moveable and portable benches and sa ws could make them the same height. Those of us with heavy, permanent, siz able benches and table saw setups, don't concern ourselves with having them the same height.