I'm starting the layout for my new shop, and I've got plenty of room -- basically 26' long x 22' deep. I'm thinking of building an 8' x 3' or
8' x 4' workbench for the center of the room. Is this ridiculously huge? A quick Google search shows that the widest commercial tops measure 30" (with the most common length of 6' followed by 8', and some as long as 10').Is there an ergonomic reason for the 30" rule? My reasoning for such a large bench is that 1) I can lay a full sheet of plywood down on it, and
2) you can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much flat work surface.This would be my primary bench, for planing and assembling, and I strongly suspect it might also accumulate piles of tools, bottles of glue and the occasional wood scrap.
I plan to put another (slightly higher and much narrower) L-shaped bench along one wall for finer work.
Any recommendations for height? I'm 6'-4" (and yes, I have "The Workbench Book," but I figured its worth getting additional input from the wrecking crew).
You can see the proposed layout of the shop here:
Constructive criticism always welcome.
Darin
P.S. I don't actually -own- any of the tools shown in the layout yet, but I suspect I may acquire them all at some point. The shop is going down in the basement of a newly-built detached garage in Minneapolis, with radiant floor heat piped in under ground from our house boiler. Well, technically speaking, the garage doesn't completely exist yet either -- it's framed and roofed, but lacks doors, trim and siding. The foundation was poured into insulating concrete forms. December photos of the partially-built garage can be found here: