Plans? BF question

[Joe D'Attilio]

Anyone know of or can design a small workbench

I
Top base =3' x 3' x 1 3/4", to house a bench grinder and lock in 2-3 oil / belgian stones with adjustable stops via a tail vise.

What is a recommended height as I am looking at a workbench that accomodates standing or sitting in a drafter's stool/bar stool?

Basically I'm going to use the plans for the traditional jointer's bench and cut it down to the base I want.

How many BF of maple would I need for some thing like that?
Should the base be maple as well or oak?

ANy ideas?

[Thomas Knighton]

Joe,

Before you get to far into the planning stages of your workbench, pick up Chris Schwarz's book on Workbenches. It has two sets of plans, tips on wood selection, vise selection, and a whole host of other things.

Personally, I consider it the go-to source for workbenches.

Tom

[Joe D'Attilio]

Ok, i jsut bought it from Amazon for $19.00

[Wilbur Pan]

To be honest, your plans may be overkill for the intended use of this bench, especially using a tail vise to hold sharpening stones. I'll take some pictures of my sharpening setup when I get home, but you don't need to clamp stones in place. All you need is some sort of stop to push against. In the meantime, here's a picture of my table without all the crap that I have on it now.



For my sharpening table, I made it 24" x 48" out of 2x4 material, with a plywood shelf below for storage. A rule of thumb for workbench height is to have it about even with the base of your thumb when your arm is hanging down. I made my sharpening table an inch lower than that, since for sharpening on stones you want to be able to get over the top of the stone.

You may also want to rethink the dimensions of your table. If your table is going to be up against a wall, then 3' deep is going to leave a lot of space up against the wall that you'll have a hard time reaching, and will be pretty much wasted space. If you plan to put this table in the middle of your room, then it will be less of a problem.

[Albert Wagner]

I like this one:

http://www.plansnow.com/smwrkbnch.html

[Wilbur Pan]

As promised, here's a photo of my sharpening setup:



And here's what I do with my waterstones:



As you can (hopefully) see, I just put my waterstone on a platform with a stop for the stone to rest against. (I know you are using oilstones, but the principle is the same.) The tray that the platform sits on is to catch the water that I sprinkle on the waterstone, and there's a scrap piece of wood behind the tray so that the whole apparatus is supported by the wall of my workshop. The act of sharpening will hold the stone firmly in place, so you won't need to build a vice into a sharpening table just for this purpose.

By the way, the plans for my table are pretty much the same as the Bob Key workbench, minus the vise. And, you can get a good hand tool workout with this table. I used a powered jointer and planer for rough milling of the 2x material, but the joints are all drawbored mortise and tenon joints, and were done by hand.

[Pedro Reyes]

Joe,

If you really want to use it as a sharpening station, my advice is not use maple (or any other wood unless you see it necessary). That bench will get dirty with water or oil and steel dust.

I built a table for my lathe and my grinder out of two 3/4" MDF pieces. It is flat, it provides mass for stability and the fact that it was built using two sanwiched pieces gave me the opportunity to hide bolts and such for mounting it to the base (drill counterbored holes in the bottom board, epoxy bolts and cover with top board). The base was made out of 2x4s and 2x6s for the legs. Best thing is, the top is cheap and easy to replace.

You don't need to do this, but I put casters that come out of 2 of the legs at an angle such that when you tilt the bench the casters touch the floor and I can roll my bench around.

Just my thoughts.

/p

[Joe D'Attilio]

I agree Wilbur - I like your set-up and using pine 2x's is def the way to go for my first project. No need to waste money on maple if I'm bound to make mistakes on my first project; not to mention it is just that - A sharpening/honing table Thanks everyone this is an eye opener - Wilbur, Can you shoot me some more pics or provide dimensions and cuts. I haven't mastered the art of Mozart, so to speak(He played by ear). I don't think by just looking at yours, that i would be able to reproduce it.

Thanks again everyone