Japanese woodworking question-- floor workbench?

[Matt Lau]

I'd asked Stan Covington a while back about Japanese woodworking, and he was a wealth of knowledge.
He'd told me about his (I don't know the right word) "floor" workbench, which was a large slab of cherry.

Last year, I found an ugly coffee table on the side of the road.
I tried to make it into a floor workbench, but am not sure if I'm doing it right.

It was 1.25" of solid oak.
I ripped the wings off and squared the sides.
I'd wanted to do a through dovetail of some wood into the top, but eventually just screwed in the wood.
It doesn't bounce as much as my blum bench, but doesn't hand hard planing.

1. How did they determine height/dimensions?
2. Any recommended jigs with this type of bench?
3. Should I just keep my current bench, or make a new one?

Here's a vid of what I mean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5pJ...DQMfSwORfkAp8U

I can picture sliding this under my bed when I'm done.
My current one is about 8" off the ground, and is about lap height when sitting cross-legged.

[David Wong]

Here is my floor bench along with my shooting board which I made a while ago. The bench is made from laminated white ash. The shooting board is made from port orford decking lumber.

The dimensions of the bench are approximately 14"W x 36"L x 6-1/2"H. The legs are 2-3/4"W x 3"H. The bench surface is 3-1/2" thick. The legs are set 4" from the ends of the bench.

If I would do it over again, I would make it lower and the top a little thinner. In use the bench slides around my floor easily, so I brace the end near me against my bent leg. Having the bench lower would give me a more comfortable position. Having the top a little wider (16") would be nice, but I ran out of ash.

My suggestion to you is to go ahead and build a smallish bench first. Gain some experience and then perhaps build a longer (5-6ft) main bench. The smaller one will be very useful as an auxiliary bench to help support wider work, or used on top of the other bench to gain some height when working on a piece.

This blog was inspirational to me regarding floor benches.

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[Stanley Covington]

Matt: Size will depend on two things: First, the size of members you will work on. Too narrow will not work well for wider boards. You might be able to plane a wide board on a narrow top by shifting the board, but you will not be able to tap the corners to check for rocking/twist. On the other hand, an unnecessarily wide top is expensive, heavy, and harder to keep flat than a narrow top.
Too short makes it impossible to plane long boards. But too long is heavy, expensive, and impractical because you can only plane as far as you can reach when kneeling.
Most people that plane long members have a planing beam used standing up too.
Height is a different problem. Most people sit on a zabuton cushion or circular woven igusa (reed) cushion when working at the floor bench. When sitting on your zabuton (they tend to become thinner over time) with your knees on the zabuton too, the bench top should be high enough to hit your knee so you can stop it from sliding towards you, but low enough so the end of your plane will clear your knee when shooting down the center. It also needs to be sized so your knees will slide under the bench and touch the leg/crosspiece/batten when the zabuton is scooted back so your bum is on the zabuton but your thighs and knees are on the floor.
Some people like the benchtop flat, some like it sloped towards them. I find flat is better.
The two legs/battens should be thick and solid. Very solid. I suggest using double-tapered sliding dovetails that fit very tightly to help keep top flat during humidity shifts.
Deep throat adjustable clamps (not c clamps) work well for securing. But to really be good with this type of workbench, you need to be flexible enough to use the side or left/right foot to hold work down. My knees won't let me do this anymore.
There are number of jigs use for shooting etc you will need.
One nice thing about this kind of workbench is that you can put it on top of your Western-style workbench for some operations. I designed my Western workbench specifically so my Japanese workbench will fit underneath.
One other thing. If it slips, glue sticky rubber pads to the legs. Thin is better since you do not want them to absorb shock.
Stan

[Matt Lau]

Thanks for the tips!

I'll need to go home and try sitting in that position.
For the very short term, I'll try re-positioning the legs with screws.

However, I'd like to try a double sliding dovetail sometime...to me it's a pretty intimidating joint to do...especially on an 18" wide board.

[David Wong]

I posted a couple of photos on making the foot for my floor bench here. I made a guide at the angle I wanted for the dovetail, and used it to make both the male and female portions. Derek has a very good tutorial on his site using a homemade dovetail plane.

[Eric Schubert]

I had no idea this was a thing! While I have no input to help out with your questions, you've piqued my interest enough to tag along and see where this goes. Thanks!

[Matt Lau]

Hey David,

Thanks for the tips. Btw, it looks like you're in my neck of the woods (relatively speaking).
One of my buddies is a pediatric cardiologist in Stanford.

In terms of the blog, do you understand Japanese or just use google translate?

I'll be a bit delayed on this project, since I fell off my bike and strained/sprained my shoulder.

[Matt Lau]

btw, nice bench.

As for wood, I'll start out with just reusing this oak top...but in the future, maybe I'll use something thicker and heavier.
It should be fun though!

[Matt Lau]

By the way, what type of jigs would you recommend making for this?
Off the top of my head, I'll need to: dovetail some stops (like David). Maybe make a through mortise for dogs to plane thin stock (like 2mm soundboards). David's shooting board. There's much to learn!

[David Wong]

Matt,

I actually made a separate planing board with through mortise stops similar to the one Kyoto Tanaka shows on his youtube channel. The top is 1-3/8 inch thick, and the stops are 3" x 1/2". It works great for holding thin pieces. I had used the planing board on a table top. Because I need a hammer to adjust the stops, it was not convenient to use as a floor bench. My floor bench uses removable dovetailed stops. I have 3 sets at different heights. They slide off for changing easily. One day i'll get around to modifying my though mortise bench so I can use it on my floor bench. It will just need longer support "feet".

There are different styles of endgrain shooting board. The one I use requires you to hold the kanna with one hand while pushing it against the work. It can be tiring, but I like this style because it allows me to skew the blade to the work. You can also make a shooting board where the kanna is resting on its side as you pull it past the work. You can sometimes see specialized kanna dai's with the resting side being somewhat thicker than the other side, to compensate for wear.

I often use a long grain shooting board, which is just a parallel board with a planing stop on one end to hold the work. The kanna side rests on the bench as you pull it along the work. The shooting board rest against one of the planing stops on the bench.

Depending on what you are doing, a 45 degree end grain shooting board is pretty essential.

Regarding the blog I referenced, I do not read Japanese. I can read kana and just a few kanji. I do use google translate, but mostly I study the photos to see how the floor bench is used.

[Matt Lau]

Hey David,

The long grain shooting board sounds like a S-hook.
Aside from the 45 degree shooting board and the long grain board, are there other fixtures?

I put my floorbench to work last night, and found it quite admirable to the task,
The legs are secured with screws, and just the right height for my foot to fit under, for my knee to brace, and to fit under the bed...I don't think that I'll be dovetailing in the leg since it'd be too short.

[Matt Lau]

I had a patient cancellation, so went through about 5 years worth of the guy's blog posts.

It's really refreshing to see how they can use those workbenches in so many ways!
It's also really humbling to see how they can use what look like fairly mundane tools (including hardware store angle iron/aluminum as straight edges/winding sticks) to make beautiful things.

Truly the user, not the tool.

[Matt Lau]

By the way, for the stops--what are your thoughts on a dovetailed stop vs a through mortise?

I'm not sure if one is significantly stronger than the other?

[David Wong]

By the way, for the stops--what are your thoughts on a dovetailed stop vs a through mortise?

I'm not sure if one is significantly stronger than the other?

The mortised stops I have on my small planing bench are plenty strong. I used bloodwood with tight through mortises in a live oak top. The top is 1-3/8" thick. I have to use a hammer to adjust the level of the stops. I have used them from 1/8" up to 1" proud. They should work fine on your 1-1/4" bench top. For a thicker bench top, you may want to checkout the bench and planing stops featured in this blog. Scroll down a little from the top.

I have been happy with the dovetailed stops on my 3-1/2" bench top. I use softwood planing stops here and have 3 sets at different heights. I have a longer stop that overhangs the edge of the bench by 3/4". I use it as a stop when planing the edge of a board, holding it vertically against the side of the bench. The dovetailed stops are not as adjustable for height, but they are flexible in other ways.

On your question about jigs, check out this search on 木口台 for shooting boards.

I don't know if I mentioned it, but I have not been using my floor bench much lately. It was not fun using it on the concrete floor of my garage.