Shaker Inspired Workbench

[Ron Brese]

Myself and Jameel Abraham recently completed this Shaker Inspired Workbench. I am the lucky beneficiary of this work. Jameel has told this story quite well on his blog. For more information and some funny video you can visit there by following the supplied link. I incorporated the BenchCrafted vises into my bench and I have to say the "Effortless Workholding" claim is for real.

Thanks for looking,

Ron Brese

http://oudluthier.blogspot.com/

[Phillip Pattee]

Nice bench! Love the details too. Is that a stealth gloat on the plane?

[Jim Barrett]

Ron,
Great looking bench...enjoyed watching your video showing you work wood with your fantastic planes.

Jim

[Ken Werner]

Wow Ron, that is a beauty for sure. I am sure you will put it to good use.

[Thomas love]

Functional shop furniture, I love it.
Should not the shop have at least one piece of furniture that stays in the shop?
Nice work .

[Ron Brese]

Phillip,

That's a prototype 410 stainless panel plane. I guess it's not a gloat if you built the tool.......well maybe it is!!:)

Thanks for noticing,

Ron

[Paul Murphy]

Ron, you and Jameel sure do wonderful work. :)

[Ron Brese]

Thanks Paul, We only had 5 days in the shop during Jameel's visit and we were in the shop late into the evening almost every night. Of course if you watched the video you could probably tell that we were getting a little punch drunk on a couple of those late nights.

Ron

[Leigh Betsch]

Now that I like. Don't imagine that those drawers would hold any planes?

[Jim Koepke]

I like the Buck Rodger's leg vice. I didn't realize that was a shaker kind of design element.

jim

[Jim Kirkpatrick]

That's a beauty Ron! +1 on the leg vise comment. Curioius though, there's no roller guide. Is it hidden like Jim Tolpin's or do you have some other method?

[Tom Godley]

Wow -- That is nice.

That would look great in my kitchen -- will the vice crack nuts??


love the door on the end! ,,,,,, and the plane :)

[Ron Brese]

Hi All,

The workings for the vise are in the cupboard. If you look closely in the video you will see the roller bracket under the chop on the outside of the bench. The more I looked at that the less I liked the look, especially on this style bench. I modified the arrangement of the wheels in order to house both wheels inside the cupboard. If you visit Jameel's blog you will see a picture that shows the portion of the cupboard that is dedicated to the workings of the leg vise. The cupboard door on the end allows easy access to make adjustments. Separating the workings for the leg vise from the adjacent storage compartment was extra work but I think the convenience of access was worth the effort.

I don't actually plan to store planes in this bench, they will be going into a wall cabinet that will also get the same finished treatments as the base of the bench. The drawer will mostly house chisels, screwdrivers and layout tools. I think separate storage for the planes is practical. I don't want to get a board resting on the dead man support and clamped into the leg vise only to discover that the plane I need is in the cupboard behind the door.

You know Shakers were innovative people and invented a lot of practical devices. They commissioned the building of a water driven turbine in order to increase the horsepower output in the woodworking shop at the Hancock Settlement. I think they would have recognized the practical usage of a wheel operated vise and would have readily adopted these devices. There's a good chance if you attend the WIA conference in October that you will see this bench outfitted with black hand wheels. Not a done deal but we'll see.

I think I can speak for myself and Jameel when I say "Thanks for the nice compliments on the bench",

Ron

[Kevin Adams]

Ron, I've seen the posts on WN and Jameel's blog, and just wanted to compliment you like everyone else on a beautiful bench. What paint did you use (latex or traditional milk) and how did you do the dovetailed drawers...just very carefully?

Thanks for sharing.
Kevin

[Jeff Johnson]

An "Infill Workbench"? :)

[Joe Cunningham]

In my best Darth Vader voice "Most Impressive".

I'd like to have that in my kitchen as a center island (w/o vises).

[Chen-Tin Tsai]

Wow, awesome bench. I love the two Benchcrafted vises. If/When I get the space available to build a big bench, it's going to have at least a Benchcrafted Wagon vise on it. :)

[Jon Toebbe]

One thing I don't see in any of the pictures: a parallel guide stop for the leg vice. Does having two wheels on opposite sides of the guide make a pin unnecessary, or am I just not seeing it?

The workmanship on your bench is impeccable! Bravo!

[Jim Koepke]

I'd like to have that in my kitchen as a center island (w/o vises).

They could come in handy to hold cookbooks and mixing stands.

jim

[Ron Brese]

Jon,

I thought about a stop on the guide bar for the leg vise. The open capacity is about 8", however most anything that would require near that capacity would most likely be handled flat with the wagon vise on top of the bench. Having a stop would just cause me to have to remove it in the event that I had need to completely remove the vise chop. I don't think that I will be using that much capacity in the leg vise very often so I opted not to add the stop.

Kevin ask about the paint on the cupboard base of the bench. I think milk paint would look great, however I find that the SW solid exterior stain colors work as well and are easier to apply. This material gives you a good flat base and when it's dry I lightly sand it and then scrub it down with maroon scotch brite. I then apply a walnut stain to the the painted surface, wiping off most of the color and leaving it in the crevices and around the heads of the square cut nails and in the other imperfections in the surface. When that's dry I then go over the surface with a Dark Walnut Watco oil finish to give it a nice satin sheen.

Ron

[Ron Brese]

Funny you guys should make the reference to using a bench in the kitchen. One night when we were finishing up and stepping back to review our accomplishments for the day, Jameel mentioned that he could see why people would enjoy having a workbench in the kitchen. Once the top was on the bench the first thing my wife asked was "could you make us a kitchen island that looks like this?"

Another project on a long list of projects,

Ron

[Dave Anderson NH]

Very nicely done Ron. As for home projects, I figure that with the list I have I'm gonna have to live to be about 150 to complete them all. When Sue first saw the 8 feet of counter, cabinets, and the glass doored cabinets for books in my shop she complained for the next 6 months to everyone who saw them that they were better than the ones she had in her kitchen. And the answer is no, I've been able to successfully ignore that one for about 5 years now.

[Ron Brese]

Dave,

The last couple of things that I found the time to build were for my wife so I'm on the good side of things at this point. I took no flax whatsoever for building myself something. However I have no idea how long this will last. I'll give her a week.:D

Ron