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Thread: Bench Height, and Historical Designs...

  1. #1
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    Bench Height, and Historical Designs...

    I'm not a particularly tall person, at only about 5' 9", and am of a height and thin build probably typical of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

    But, I found something interesting. Looking through all of the old workbench designs in a few books, such as "The Practical Woodworker," most of the benches come in quite low at around 30 inches. And indeed, I recall seeing "two and a half feet" as the standard bench height in other Historical books.

    So, many years ago, I built my first bench at 30", and it caused me nothing but back pain. I built my second bench at 31.5", and it too caused me back pain.

    I find 33-34" minimum to be comfortable.

    But I have to wonder, am I missing something?

    I mean, Roy Underhill loves and always advocates for such low benches, and it seems that most Historical sources do too. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong?

    Am I stooping over my work and getting much too close to it? I find myself bent over my bench and my eyes very low and close to my work often, and I wonder if this is some kind of weird habit of mine -- if I should be more comfortable farther back. My eye-sight is very good, so it's not like I have any excuse there.

    One thing I have done is change my stance when doing certain things such as sawing or boring in the vise, for instance -- lowering it a bit and spreading my legs out more -- one forward and one backwards, as is sometimes depicted.

    So, I'm just kind of curious: are you comfortable "further up" and "farther away" from your work, or do you generally stoop over it and get your eyes as close as possible?

    Some of these habits may be from my long formed habit of working on the floor, which is where most of my woodworking has been done over the years (first as a kid without a bench, and much later in more of a Japanese fashion). Working on the floor, it's quite easy to see the work and get your eyes right up to it without the backpain from bending over. This is one big reason I find working in Japanese fashion to actually be really comfortable, though it limits you to Japanese tools that cut on the pull stroke mostly (as there's not enough weight to hold the bench when pushing unless you butt it up against the wall).

    Anyway, I am particularly interested in hearing the experience of you folks who prefer a low bench, and curious how you manage not to have severe back pain!

    It would be quite convenient to be able to work at a lower height, as I often have found myself improvising on a kitchen table or other improvised surfaces, and I'm curious to know what I might be missing and not appreciating about lower benches.
    Last edited by Luke Dupont; 04-09-2022 at 8:21 AM.

  2. #2
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    Bench height is very important for using tools productively.

    It’s your bench, Taylor made for you, not Roy. If 34” is comfortable the only thing you are missing is the back pain. People have different length arms which affects tool usage also. When you get older you appreciate things being a bit closer to see what you are doing as well!
    ​You can do a lot with very little! You can do a little more with a lot!

  3. #3
    Join Date
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    Historical height may not mean much today. If you think through it lots of things have changed. People were not generally as tall. They had access to lots, of to die for, wider material. The grip of their wooden planes was higher. That transfers to lots of 12” wide boards to our 6”. 2” higher grip on the plane. 30” may be good for flattening panels where you have to reach across, even for today. They did use things to raise the work, the infamous Moxon, miter jacks and such.
    Jim

  4. #4
    I'm 5'9" and my bench is 31.5" high. It works well for me, but I also have very long arms and wear a shirt with 35-36" sleeve length. Before I built my now 14-year-old bench, I experimented with my old bench which had adjustable length steel legs. Not everyone has that luxury, but if you do, it is worth adjusting inch by inch while performing assorted operations. As James noted, using wooden bodied planes effectively adds 2-4" to the height of your bench while planing so the idea of a 30" high bench for your and my height actually makes historical sense.
    Dave Anderson

    Chester, NH

  5. #5
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    A lot of people stress over this, Paul Sellers likes higher styles. Will Meyers thinks first or second knuckle is best. I settled on my Jobsite Sawstop table height because in a small shop it can double as outfeed table and not interfere if higher. I figured I could always lower it later if needed, turns out I like the height. Why not take a bench you currently have and find a way to elevate it to a height as a test fit to see how you like it? I have seen some use a hinge and a 4X4 to flip it down under legs to get a 4" boost for some work.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Luke Dupont View Post
    I

    Am I stooping over my work and getting much too close to it? I find myself bent over my bench and my eyes very low and close to my work often, and I wonder if this is some kind of weird habit of mine -- if I should be more comfortable farther back. My eye-sight is very good, so it's not like I have any excuse there.

    One thing I have done is change my stance when doing certain things such as sawing or boring in the vise, for instance -- lowering it a bit and spreading my legs out more -- one forward and one backwards, as is sometimes depicted.

    So, I'm just kind of curious: are you comfortable "further up" and "farther away" from your work, or do you generally stoop over it and get your eyes as close as possible?
    You want to preserve your posture and learn to work farther away. I have often seen pictures of workshops for beginners where they seem to want to saw right in front of their eyes with the saw practically grazing their cheek. You won't see Roy Underhill in such a posture. We do sometimes spread our legs by quite bit to get more leverage or to lower down somewhat. We can generally tolerate a pretty good range of bench heights.

  7. #7
    IMHO, 30" is fine, if it's saw horse or something to to used with ones body literally over the work to be done. Which was the situation when dimensionless stock and other tasks in days gone by. If you still mill and prep stock by hand, it's a consideration.
    A workbench as they've come to be used these days, a worker stands next to, when working wood. There is less need to stand over your work utilizing your frame and body mechanics as part of the process. 30" might be a good height to kneel on a board and use a hand saw but for myself at 6', it's far too short for a "workbench".

  8. #8
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    I'm 5'10-1/2" tall..and my bench is 34" tall. What is often lost, is that when you joint a board..
    April Project, #4 board.JPG
    Top of that chop is level with the top of my bench....plane is now 2" above the height of the bench....and the handles are even higher....

    No matter how high the top of a bench may be.....it is what you will be laying on top of the bench....as in how thick a board.

    Imagine how high this is, above the floor...
    Saturday's work, ready to chop.JPG
    And the mallet and chisel handle above that?
    A Planer? I'm the Planer, and this is what I use

  9. #9
    Join Date
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    Differences in body style render most metrics ineffective which is why I like HNT Gordon's rather pragmatic description of how to determine bench height. Essentially, you bought your average stick on the bench. put a plane on it and assime a planing stance. When you forearm is level, the bottom of the last board is the correct bench height = for that average board with that plane.

  10. #10
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    My saw benches are made so with one foot flat on the floor my other knee can be on top of the piece being cut.

    My current bench is 32" tall, if my memory is working. A few inches taller would be nice.

    One random thought on the "historic bench height" is workers of old may have had to do a lot more work between sharpening of blades. This might have required more body weight used to plane a board, thus the shorter bench.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  11. #11
    It is very individual. My current Frid bench is about 33" tall, and if I still did a lot of face and finish planing of boards, I would want it lower. Now, it is used more for joinery and holding boards that I am routing (I haven't had the time to do hand tool woodworking for the last few years), so the current height works OK. I'm probably close to 5'9" these days, but I have the arms of someone 6'2" (and the legs of someone 5'6" ) so I am going to want a lower bench height. The rest of my benches are standardized at 36" inches, but that is to match my tablesaw. Given the option, I'd probably have those an inch lower.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Aug 2014
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    Silicon Valley, CA
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    A little late, sorry.

    Jim Tolpin has a description of sizing benches for different types of work I like:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBS5-AV81lg


    There are also a couple older threads about the topic which may help decide what you want/need. Here's my old post with Tolpin's video link and the link where I was introduced to it:

    Quote Originally Posted by David Bassett View Post
    Jim Tolpin has a video about bench height for different tasks I like:

    Sizing Workbenches


    Also, here's a link to a previous discussion (where that video was pointed out):

    https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread....ight-amp-width

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Apr 2017
    Location
    Michigan
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    Hi Luke
    Like you I find myself hunched over the work to see better. Back pain? yes. My solution was to add a taller bench, a small one. I use it for drafting, layout, chopping joinery and many other things. But the larger lower bench is still my main bench. It has the vices and is best for assembly work, and for anything large. They are about 30" and 43" tall.

    Small Bench.jpg Bench.jpg

  14. #14
    Wow Tom,

    That is the first bench I've seen with turned legs. Quite unique.
    Dave Anderson

    Chester, NH

  15. #15
    Wood by Wright has been gathering a few hundred data points on bench height. It's pretty interesting. I suspect, like most videos he's done with spreadsheets, he will later dive further into the data and make a video about it. In the meantime, here's the running data collection.

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=1110681164

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