Always wanted a workbench

[paul h senn]

bench 043-1.jpgbench 042-1.jpgbench 041-1.jpgbench 038-1.jpg
Hard maple, the top is aprox 3" thick with the aprons 4" thick. The ends and back are frame and panel construction. The drawers are all box jointed poplar with plywood bottoms on full extension ball bearing slides. The bench top is mortised into the end caps to keep the top from bowing. Finished with Danish oil. Lee Valley twinscrew vise and copy of Emmert Pattern Makers vise. A couple of carefully placed dog holes. The top is about 32" wide and 7" long. I planed it by hand after assembling it in 3 sections. It should outlast my great grandchildren. It is a heavy beast. It took about 80 hours to compete and some help to set the top.









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[Paul Cahill]

Very nice - a beast as you said!

[Andrew Hughes]

Nice bench that deserves the Emmert vice,looks like a marriage the will last! Thanks for sharing with us.

[Bruce Page]

That is massive with a whole lotta dog holes! Very nice.

[Mike Cozad]

Wow. Beautiful craftsmanship.

[Peter Widders]

That's a really nice job. Well done - now enjoy using it!

[Todd Burch]

That's a lot of bench! A couple dog holes? Ya think!!!

Nice job. I like this style bench.

[John Dorough]

I concur with the others: congratulations, great job.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Extremely well done! I am envious!

[John Conklin]

Wow, that is really a beautiful bench! I'm battling with the buy vs build question and I'm afraid that the buy is goning to win out.

Great work.

[Yonak Hawkins]

That's a great looking bench. I'd love to have a bench like that. I especially like all the drawers.


I have always wondered, what happens to the sawdust that falls through the dog holes. Does it end up in the drawers ?

[brad jansen]

Outstanding job! What a beauty.

[Joe A Faulkner]

Great job on the bench! Massive, huge work surface; ample, convenient storage; nice vise configuration, lots of room to work around all sides of the bench; and it looks great too. How did you bore the dog holes, and what is the clearance between the top of your cabinet and bottom of the bench top?

[paul h senn]

Thanks everyone for the comments. The clearance between the top of the cabinet and bottom of the bench top is about 5 inches. The top is held in place with 4 large screws through slotted brackets to handle any seasonal movement. The top panel of the bottom section is 1/2" maple plywood inset in to a maple frame to make it easy to clean. The dog holes were drilled first with a router and jig that made it easier to keep the holes parallel and square and then final bored with a 3/4" brad point bit. I used a backer board for the final drilling to minimize tearout. The holes were finished up with a chamfer bit. The clearance under the bench top allows me to push the dogs through if I need to and easily retrieve them.
On the bottom of the bench I wrote all of the info about building it and I hope that whoever ends up with it after I am gone will be surprised when or if they find it.

[Mike Null]

That is so beautiful I don't know that I could bring myself to use it.