Hello all,

I am doing a lot of on-location presentations, and I needed a bench that I could knock down, and drag out to events. That’s how I named it the “knock down, drag out” bench!!!

I didn’t want a vise, because vises are heavy and would complicate the assembly/disassembly, as well as transporting the bench. I went with an English bench with a skirt. The skirt acts as a stretcher and makes it a simple assembly. Four huge 1/2” carriage bolts hold the skirts on either side. The top has six 1/4x20 bolts, and the top has threaded inserts on bottom. Also, the top has two 3/4” dowels for alignment pins. One pin is mounted on the top on one end, and the other is mounted on the base. This way I know easily which way to orient the top onto the base. I was very pleased when I first put the top on that it worked perfectly well without even being bolted. The alignment pins held it firmly. The bolts are just to lock it down snugly.

I finished the bench last night at 9:00 PM, and today at noon she had her first trial at a presentation I did on using hollows and rounds. It took maybe 5 minutes to set up. I was very pleased.

She’s all maple, and so I get a nice heavy bench, but it is easy to move in pieces. I needed a tool tray because I’m doing presentations on tools and I wanted to have a tray. That worked very well, because the top is two pieces. The larger piece comes off by itself. The narrow piece is screwed and glued to the skirt on that side. That has the added advantage of making the two skirts different so you immediately know which one goes on which side. The tool tray bottom has four 1/4x20 machine screws that screw into inserts in the base. I put two small drill marks in one side of the base and the tray bottom so I can easily know which way it goes on.

Here are some pics.

The base is massive. I love a heavy bench.

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This shows the way the one side has the narrow strip mounted to the skirt. It comes off with the skirt when transporting.
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This shows one of the alignment pegs. The one on the other side is mounted in the top.
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Here she is at the first on-location demonstration on making mouldings with traditional hand planes.
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