NO BS- What every woodworker needs to know about workbenches

hi I'm James Hamilton from stampin up's woodworking journal and today I'm gonna help you sort through the BS out there so you can find the workbench that's right for you bs stands for butter sticks by the way this is a family show a workbench is a significant expense you don't want to be peer pressured into the wrong one and end up regretting it for the next 20 years because it isn't right for the sort of work you do in your shop so here's what we're going to do as a guy who works with both power and hand tools I'm gonna take you on a detailed tour of the workbench features professionals have favored for generations and I'll tell you how they may or may not work for both hand tool and power tool woodworking then you can take that knowledge and use it to buy or build a bench that's right for you first let's clear up a misconception about what a brute bench actually is if you think a bench is just a flat surface you work on you're missing the whole point that's an assembly table a work bench is a workholding device the biggest woodworking jig and arguably most important tool in your shop you can lay a piece of wood on any surface but a workbench is equipped with devices to hold it for you so you can work on all three types of surfaces that's right every workpiece has three types of surfaces faces edges and ends it doesn't matter if you work primarily with power tools or hand tools you must have a way to securely hold your workpiece so you can safely and accurately work on any or all of those surfaces let's start with the vices every good woodworking bench needs at least one when it's positioned on the face like this one it's called a face vise this is the workhorse of the workbench it's responsible for 90% of the work holding in one way or another so it must be well-made if you're building a bench you may end up spending more on this vise than in all the other materials and hardware on the bench itself and if you're buying a bench the quality of this vise should be among the first things you look at you don't want a little spindly thing look at the threads on this one that's not a standard thread these are heavy enough to exert a tremendous amount of clamping pressure without deforming and the low number of threads per inch make it possible to open and close the vise without a billion turns of the handle some vices have quick-release mechanisms so they open and close fast I like that idea but the ones I view are kind of fiddly sometimes the mechanism will engage sometimes it won't disengage personally I like to keep things simple so I wouldn't say that a quick release is an essential feature as long as the threads are course you'll also notice the heavy steel tracking bars in this vise that's to keep the jaw or the top parallel to the front edge of the bench top I don't care if you're a hand or power tool guy the time will come when you'll have to clamp something in one end of the vise when you do this a cheap voice with spindly guide bars is going to rack the jaws will close more on the side without the workpiece than the side with it and you're gonna lose the gripping power where you need it the manufacturer is gonna tell you that you're supposed to play Sims on the empty side to keep the job parallel I say just get a good vise with a heavy-duty tracking mechanism and you won't have to deal with that hassle a little racking can't be avoided entirely because the screw exerts a tremendous amount of force on one side but a good vise should remain almost perfectly parallel and keep the workpiece secure without shims another problem with a lot of woodworking vices is they're too narrow which limits their usefulness in a lot of ways especially when working on the edge of long stack you can put a long wooden chop or jaw on a narrow vise but that's gonna work as a lever and exacerbate the racking issues again it's better to get a big robust faced vise to begin with some people say they prefer leg vices that's an old style advice that requires bending over and adjusting a pin near the floor a proposition that a guy like me finds less than convenient I've had a couple those ones stored in my shed right now and it's likely to stay there forever to me the only real benefit is the screw is so low that you have lots of room to hold a drawer side for dovetailing but I can do that with no problem on the end of my face place overall I find leg vices to be a pain to use and too narrow for a lot of tasks finally let's briefly touch on Vice position there's a reason most face vices are on the left side of the bench that's the most comfortable position for hand planing if you're right-handed if you're left-handed you should move the device to the right side of the bench even if you never use a hand plane I still suggest you follow these traditional vise placement rules because a vise in the center of the bench is going to get in the way when you're not using it and there are a lot of other workholding benefits to these positions that we'll discuss later a lot of benches also have a second vise on the end and vices are very handy as we'll discuss shortly but you're unlikely to use it as much as the face vise at least that's been my experience so spend the money on the face vise first then you can add an end vise later you can even get a less robust and vise if you need to save some cash since it's not going to be the workhorse that the face vise is have you ever wondered why some benches have holes in the top like a big slab of Swiss cheese they're called dog holes and they're a traditional woodworking bench feature that I think are still essential for both power tool and hand tool woodworking typically a bench will have two sets of rows you'll have a set that runs the length of the bench and a set that runs across the bench both rows aligned with holes on each end of your vise chops you place pegs or bench dogs in these holes and use the vices clamping action to pinch the workpiece and hold it securely this is useful for hand planing but also for a power tool tasks like sanding or routing because you can access the entire surface from edge to edge without clamps getting in the way having a nice wide chop on your vise also makes it possible to space these rows further apart and accommodate wider panels more securely most of the time I use the face vise for that kind of surface clamping but larger longer work pieces are better accommodated with the end vise speaking of clamping options there's another way these holes can be used to secure your work this is called a holdfast it can be used to clamp all sorts of things down using these same holes as the bench dogs this is a modern version a traditional holdfast looks more like this one they're nice and long so they can be used to clamp large objects even entire pieces of furniture to the bench top for work and repairs and the way they work is really ingenious the shaft is just slightly smaller than the holes in the top of your bench when you hit the top with a hammer it wedges the shaft in the hole and your workpiece isn't going anywhere until you hit it on the back with a hammer and that releases the hold fast the downside of this traditional design is if I'm not clamping something really big or really thick this shaft is going to stick out a long way beneath my bench top and I have a tool cabinet down there it makes it impossible to use this hold fast with standard 3/4 inch work pieces so I prefer the modern design that only goes a few inches into the bench top and then the hooked part rises up and down to accommodate different thicknesses and clamping jobs you also don't need a hammer for this one you just give the handle a twist this is made for a one inch dog hole but I've seen similar versions for benches with smaller 3/4 inch holes holdfasts are faster and less cumbersome than clamps and they can be put in places clamps can't you can bore a hole anywhere in this bench top that you need it but I find that the holes that came in mine are perfectly adequate the holes also come in handy for other odd jobs like running a nail or a dowel all the way through a workpiece without going into your workbench you'd be surprised how you'll use them there's even accessories designed to go with them like this animal plate I don't care if you work with power tools or hand tools you need to secure your work for sawing sanding routing whatever but I still prefer bench dogs and holdfast and a traditional workbench a lot of well-meaning folks put a lot of time and money into a workbench without realizing they blew it from the moment they designed the undercarriage see how the legs of my bench are flush with the front edge of the top this is done intentionally so the face of the bench can become a work holding surface just like the top by slipping a holdfast into a hole on the leg you can use your vise to clamp large work pieces for edge work imagine edge banding a plywood panel or routing a hinge mortising on the door if your legs are set back so that the top has an overhang on the front you can't do this and someday you'll kick yourself over of course this feature will only work if your vise is mounted properly as well you our jaw should close flat against the edge of the bench top I see a lot of benches with vices mounted the wrong way they have inner jaws that set proud of this apron these folks don't know that they're limiting what their bench can do this vise here has no inner job if it did I would have to put a mortise or a slot in lamination process so that it can be set back behind the front apron another way modern benches fall short is there to light a 3/4 inch plywood top on some 2x4 legs aren't gonna do the job a workbench should be big and strong and heavy if your song or chopping on something you don't want your bench moving around or worse yet racking on you you want a thick top and beefy legs and as much weight as possible mine's about 300 pounds without the tools in the cabinet and a lot of the benches bulk is right here in the top a bench top should be heavy it should be durable and it should be flat this is where some wood of girders to get into endless debates some folks say a beat-up chunk of plywood that sags in the middle is perfectly fine because after all it's a work bench not a piece of furniture others get up their jointer plane and flatten their bench top like a lapping plate every weekend I say try assembling a drawer or a frame or some other project on a nice flat bench top once and you will never go back having that reliable reference surface is a godsend but doesn't mean I get out the feeler gauges and check my top for flatness every day but it does mean I want a thick top at least three inches of stable hardwood anything thinner will sag and you'll have to reflect on it all the time if thick top is also a dense top and you'll appreciate that when you're chopping a mortise or assembling joinery with a mallet not everyone likes tool cabinets beneath their benches but I do not only is it handy for storage but it greatly strengthens the benches frame and all that extra weight makes the bench itself heavier fully loaded this thing must tip the scale at a quarter ton it's like piling cement blocks on the base which is what some people do without tool cabinets when they realize that their bench needs more weight I also find a tool cabinet forces me to be more organized and sin M PI lling junk in the open space that would otherwise be beneath my bench but here is the downside it prevents me from using traditional holdfast like this one if I use this to clamp down three-quarter-inch work the bulk of the shaft is gonna protrude beneath my bench top I do have some space down there which I highly recommend a shelf of some kind so that you can store mallets and holdfast and other things you reach for frequently but not enough to keep this from bottoming out on the cabinet so I have to use the more traditional style holdfast like this one that don't extend will know below the bench top well I like tool cabinets I dislike tool trays some traditional benches have them and I find that they're a great place to collect junk and wood shavings they also take up valuable work space on the bench top most people I know have tool trays on their benches wish that they didn't I would much rather have a wall-mounted tool rack either above the bench or on a wall behind it with the most used tools within easy reach whether you work mostly with power tools or hand tools your workbench should have certain essential features it should be well built from solid stable wood the legs should be flush with the front of the bench top and the vise should close flat against it the vise should be properly located and of the best quality you can find it should be nice and wide easy to open and close and strong enough to resist racking a tail vise is a handy Edition but secondary to the face vise you should have plenty of dog holes in the top and in the legs for a wide range of workholding options the top should be at least 3 inches thick and nice and flat and I recommend tool storage beneath but no tool tray on top to me that's the perfect hybrid workbench suited to power tool and hand tool use you can build that bench incorporating some or all of these features if you see fit or you can buy one like mine it's all ready to go so you can get to woodworking the point is don't let people tell you that traditional workbench features are obsolete in a modern workshop or that you need whatever bench style is trendy at the moment buyer build what makes sense to you for more great tips tricks and tutorials designed to make you a better woodworker check out stumpy nubs woodworking journal you can subscribe for free at stumpy nubs dot-com

Channel: Stumpy Nubs

Views: 657,744

Rating: 4.9196854 out of 5

Keywords: woodworking, stumpy nubs, work bench, woodworking bench, hand tools, power tools, bench dogs, holdfast, vise, tail vise

Id: m4e5BRqRwy8

Length: 13min 49sec (829 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 13 2018