How tall is your workbench?

[Rick Schubert]

I'm thinking of building a workbench or adapting an old one I have. I am wondering about the height. I'll be using it for planing and general work.

I'm 6'3" and much of my height is in my legs-36" inseam on jeans.

How high is your bench and how tall are you? Do you wish it was higher or lower? Is there a general "rule of thumb" to use?

Thanks, Rick

[tod evans]

rick, stand straight with your arms down at your side, bend your hand where your fingers are parallel to the ground. i like a bench to be at the height of the heal of my palm......02 tod

[Von Bickley]

Rick,
I am in the process of building a new shop. In the new shop, all of my benches and tables will be built to match the height of my table saw out-feed table.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Hi Rick
I'm going to proceed based on the assumption that you will be using the bench primarily for hand tool use as opposed to handling electric routers and such. If you are building a bench with four separate legs, and they are not joined at the bottom by sled type feet, you have the option of doing some experimenting. Start with a bench that is at the maximum height you would expect to use and remove one inch at a time until you find the correct height. The down side of this approach is that once cut off, it's hard (but not impossible) to add material back to increase the height. If you try this approach, thoroughly use each height for as many different operations as possible for at least a month before cutting down another inch.

One of the traditional bench height measurements has always been that when standing next to the bench the correct height will have your wrist at the benchtop. If you do a lot of handplaning however, this will be perhaps 1-2 inches too high for long term comfort. In my case, at 5'9" and with a 35-36" sleeve length (no ape jokes folks), my bench is 33" high. I started at 36" 16 years ago and lowered the bench several times as the amount of hand tool work increased. I find that 33" is a good compromise height for me. It's still 1-2" higher than optimal for extensive hand planing, it works almost perfectly for choping joinery, and it is almost a foot too low for carving.

I would guess that a good height for you would be between 35-37".

[Spence DePauw]

I'm 6'5", with normal proportions (I guess, kids don't laugh and point...). I found that 39" was about right for me. I set the tablesaw to that height, and the workbench. It's served me well, for what it's worth.

Spence

[Zahid Naqvi]

Yup! what Dave and Tod said. I used the wrist height principle when I was buliding my bench about 2 yrs ago, and so far haven't felt the need to change the height.

[Bruce Page]

Rick, I’m 6’3” also. I built my bench top height at an unconventional 43”. I’m sure it is too tall for many, but it works for me

[Chris Damm]

I'm 6'4" and one bench is 36" while I raised the other one to about 40". The taller one is more comfortable to work at. The short one becomes a catchall for everything.

[Brian Hale]

I'm 5'6" and I like mine the same height as my tablesaw, 35"

Brian :)

[Mike Henderson]

For working with planes, I find that a bench in the low to mid 30's works well. But for chisel work or for carving, that's much too low - I get a real kink in my back bending over that much. Sometimes, I get a chair so that I can sit when doing that kind of hand work.

Someday, I'm going to design some kind of strong box with a vise attached that I can put on top of the bench, clamp it in the bench vise, and have a hand work vise that is high enough to be comfortable.

Mike

[Jim Becker]

My workbench is at whatever height I need it to be at a given time within a wide range...I use Geoffrey Noden's Adjust-A-Bench (http://www.adjustabench.com/) system.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Hi Mike, Putting a carving bench on top of your regular bench and holding it in place with either clamps or using pins in the dog holes will work. Sometime in the last year or two FWW had an article on making a mini-bench of that type. Several members of our Period Furniture Group have made improved and modified versions for use on top of their regular benches and are thrilled with the added versatility. Most of the guys used between 10 inches to a foot as the height of the add on .

[Brian Hale]

My workbench is at whatever height I need it to be at a given time within a wide range...I use Geoffrey Noden's Adjust-A-Bench (http://www.adjustabench.com/) system.

Jim, you've got to stop doing that............... I'm going BROKE!! :D :D :D

Brian :)

[Tom Ruflin]

Hi Mike,

I'm 6'1" with long legs (34 to 35 inseam) and I have my hand work bench at 38" high and 2 other assembly etc benches at 36". I used to have the hand work bench at 36" and adding the 2" height really saved my back and allowed me do work alot longer with out fatigue. I did find that at times it is a little difficult to get leverage when doing some work like planing the edge of a wide board with it in the vise.

[Gary Herrmann]

I'm 6'7". Broke a couple vertebrae my freshman year in college in a car accident, so hunching over anything for very long isn't very pleasant. I still do more power tool work than hand tool work (which I hope to change), so when I build my next bench the height may go down some. That said, my bench top is about 47" (going from memory). I set it up before I got into hand tools, so that may tell you something. However, I've hand planed boards on the bench and its been reasonably comfortable.

My planes are all low angle LVs. Block, shoulder and the BU jointer, jack and smoother. Planing oak, mahogany and cherry has not been an issue for me at that height. 30 years of basketball having also taken its toll on my knees, I sometimes think about experimenting with a seated bench - as long as the boards aren't too long, it might work...

Ultimately, I will invest in some sort of height adjustable bench mechanism.

[Steve Clardy]

I'm 6.1
Two bwnches. One is 33, other is 30.5
I prefer the 33"

[James Mittlefehldt]

I am 5' 9" on a good day, and when I built my bench I did the hanging wrist thing and ended up with 34 inches and it works well though if I ever do another it will likely be 33 or even 32, as I do mostly hand work and anything higher would just not work.

[Jasper Homminga]

Someday, I'm going to design some kind of strong box with a vise attached that I can put on top of the bench, clamp it in the bench vise, and have a hand work vise that is high enough to be comfortable. Alice Frampton (Alf) over at UK Workshop has a nice example of such a benchraiser on her website. (http://www.cornishworkshop.co.uk/benchraiser.html)

I think that's the way I will go one day: the primary bench at the-rule-of-thumb-height for comfortable planing with an addition of a benchraiser and/or a vise in a vise like Jack Kamishlian has (http://wdynamic.com/galoots/4images/details.php?image_id=2419) for sawing & carving etc.

Jasper

[rick fulton]

I'd like to 2nd the recommendation for the Noden Adjust-A-Bench. The max height adjustment extends above anything I've needed to date. And lowering the bench helps when assembling large objects. The only improvement I can think of would be adding the ability to go down to 20" or so for cabinet carcass assembly.

rick

[Rolf Safferthal]

I´m 6'1'', obviously with an unusual leg-to-trunk relation. My cars driver seat is always near the rear limit of adjustment range, but the backrest more or less vertical. Seem to be an indication for short arms and long legs! ;)

My first woodworking bench (workmate-like) had a hight of 34'' and gave me always pain in the back. The bench I build now will has a minimum height of 36'' and might be elevated to 37,5'' due to machine levelers to adjust the bench on an uneven floor.

This height is much friendlier to my back. I like it! But it may not be the solution for somebody else.

Rolf

[Frank Pellow]

My benches for hand work are 36.5 inches and my height is 72 inches. Before I built the benches about 15 years ago, I tried several different heights on blocks and found that this worked best for me.

[Keith Outten]

I have two benches. The first is welded steel with a stainless top that is 34" tall. The second is variable height from 10" to 36" that is basically a plywood top mounted on a hydraulic table. I added a couple pieces of steel angle iron under the ply for strength. My hydraulic workbench also doubles as a device to unload my truck...up to 700 pounds of tools or sheet goods and 12 foot long sheets of Corian. I added a couple of small inexpensive woodworking vises to one edge of the ply to help hold items for routing, sanding and fabrication. For ripping really long lumber the adjustable bench serves as an outfeed table and allows me to feed sheets to my ShopBot CNC router right from my truck bed to the router table without lifting anything.

You gotta love a bench that works this hard :)

.

[Jim Becker]

Jim, you've got to stop doing that............... I'm going BROKE!!

Yes, the initial cost for A-A-B is more than simple wood structure (depending on the species... ;) ), but when you consider it gives you a wide variety of bench heights so you can match to the task...that makes for comfort in the back muscles, better vision of your task and hopefully, better joinery and other work. I like having a bench with a larger top, too, and this way the workbench is also a grand assembly bench...something else variable height is wonderful for.