Work Bench Time

[Andrew Gibson]

I have been planning a new bench for a long time. my current/last bench was a pair of saw courses and a doubled sheet of 3/4" mdf. This has gotten me through the last to years.

The problem has been that my shop is half out side and I have to be able to collapse and put away my tools at night. this means that the bench needs to be collapsible.

The thing is I didn't want to compromise with the stability of the bench. so through some trading I managed to aquire a stack of 8/4 red oak all about 6" wide and full 2" thick. The overall bench dimensions are 24" wide, 72" long, and 32" tall.

the design is sort of based off of the Roy Underhill design that Steve Branam built on his blog... http://www.closegrain.com/2010/08/portable-workbench.html

Anyway here is what I came up with. It weighs in just under 150lb. I still have to add a LV surface Vise (Under the Christmas tree) and the row of dog holes... other then that it is pretty much done.

Here are some pic's. let me know what you think and if you have any questions.

Before http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk294/handyandy3459/100_1336.jpg

After http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk294/handyandy3459/100_1338.jpghttp://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk294/handyandy3459/100_1340.jpg
http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk294/handyandy3459/100_1341-1.jpghttp://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk294/handyandy3459/100_1342-1.jpg

[Jason Chestnut]

Very nice work. Does it resist planing pretty well? I have some major space restrictions in my workspace, but I feel pretty lucky that I've got room to build a full 8' bench in the space I do have.

[Chris Griggs]

Nice work! Beefy yet collapsible. Very inspiring...

I'm in the midst of a bench build myself. My workspace is also outside and I was thinking of building one similar to yours. Fortunately, my better half agreed to let me take over a small corner of the house near the back door, so I went with a scaled down (60" x 20") version of the Schwarz's English Nicholson Bench.

I always love seeing the benches of fellow shopless woodworkers.

Out of curiosity, how long did yours take you to build and what was the most difficult part of that design?

I'd still like to build one like that sometime; can't hurt to have a spare bench.

[Andrew Gibson]

Very nice work. Does it resist planing pretty well? I have some major space restrictions in my workspace, but I feel pretty lucky that I've got room to build a full 8' bench in the space I do have.

I didn't have any problem with the bench moving while plaining the top. It was pretty much rock solid especially when plaining along the length. I am expecting there to be some movement when scrub plaining across the grain and taking a heavy cut... I will eventually make a shelf to go underneath that I can stack a couple cinder blocks on and really make the bench solid

[Andrew Gibson]

Chris I would say the hardest part of the build was assembling the top and then wrangling it around once put together. I picked up the wood last Tuesday and started on it I think Friday. so 6 days to this point. and there were a couple days that I didn't work on it in that time... So to this point I would say 4 or 5 days. This was definitely not a full neander build. my table saw and joiner got a lot of work.
the wood was kiln dried and stacked and covered outside about 6 years ago about 15 miles from my house, so I was not overly concerned about movement. And the wood did not move at all that I could see.

[Jeff Wittrock]

...So to this point I would say 4 or 5 days....

Very nice!

I don't think I could even decide on the dimensions in 4 or 5 days.

[Andrew Gibson]

Very nice!

I don't think I could even decide on the dimensions in 4 or 5 days.

Build time is for or five days. funny how glue takes twice as long to dry when its below 60*. Design time is more like 4 or 5 months. I'm one of those people that draws stuff in my head, so when I go to draw it on paper I have seen it before.