One sturdy, strong, last a lifetime Maple & beech workbench for my one car garage workshop
Design Brief
The base must be solid in its construction. No movement when planning (racking forwards & backwards). Can be taken apart and move if needed. No bounce in the top when chiselling. I don’t mind flattening the top every now and then. I’m cool with a little workbench maintenance. Big enough to sit in the centre of my garage. One centre stage workbench.
Materials
For the legs 40mm X 105mm Maple laminated together. A single piece of the same maple for the top side rails. The lower rails need to be huge. It’s the shear surface area of these lower rails & the square design of the base that’s going to prevent the bench from racking. For these lower rails I’m using beech 200mm x 50mm.
Making The base
The timber for the rails was bought planed on one side only. The first job was to plane the beech flat and square. With the top and bottom rails square I marked out all the mortices with a pencil line and the waste with a marker pen. I used a 20mm Forstner bit in a power drill that has a reverse! on it.
I don’t always get a straight run of time in the workshop so clearly marking the joinery helps me remember exactly where I’m at with the project.
I highlight a mistake later in this article when it comes to the sliding dovetails.
I’ve cheated here. Its crazy chiselling out the waste to the depth of the mortices. The housings must be chiselled square. I find it easier and quicker to make the tenons rounded to fit the mortices created from using a Forstner bit.
The two side mortices are held permanently together using glue dowels & drawbored tenons. The front and back rails are removable just in case I need to move the bench. That’s highly likely as I rent the garage from my neighbour and he’s going to want it back some day. The front and back rails are housed in by 10mm and held with two large bench bolts at each end.
Choosing a top
I’ve gone all out on the base with regards to buying timber. Maple for the legs and beech for the rails. Now the top. To be honest this build is all about the base this base will support any top you wish to put on it. If I’m feeling rich one day, then maybe I will put a 70mm laminated hard maple top on it.
I’ve been testing out this new bench top idea just to see what I really do want and need. My little workshop is all set up for a leaner and keener hand tool approach to woodworking.
Here is that new top and why I chose it
First point to make is, my garage workshop has no heating. The fluctuating temperature changes and damp conditions of southwest England means I can have a lot of wood movement. A 52mm laminated plywood top gives me a perfectly flat surface whatever the weather.
But who wants a plywood workbench. In the image above on the far wall is a perfectly good workbench with both a face vice and high vice. Makes sense to me to keep this new bench clean and clutter free so I made a Japanese workbench to slot in flush with the legs. With good size overhangs to allow plenty of room for clamping.
A Japanese workbench symbolises 3 things for me
- Clean lines
- Simplicity
- Understated
They really do compliment a hand tool approach to woodworking
Building the Japanese workbench
The timber was bought just like the base planed, one side. Keeping with a beech timber theme. A native timber traditionally used in workbench building it’s easy to work and widely available. Great for this project
The two planks 140mm x 52mm are edge to edge jointed glued and doweled together using 12mm dowels. This should help stabilise the wood slightly. Time for my vintage Stanley No 7 to earn its keep.
In these two images above you can see that I put an old workbench surface on top of the base until I buy the plywood. Demonstrating that you really can use whatever top you want with this base. Screw it down from underneath and you are good to go.
Checking for wind
Before the large sliding dovetails can be made both the top and underneath need to be planed flat and true. Here I’m using winding sticks to check for any twist. I prefer metal winding sticks these ones are aluminium. Again, this is because of temperature and damp conditions. These aluminium ones will stay true no matter what the weather is doing.
Making the sliding dovetail joints
The timber for the sliding dovetail is beech 70mm x 70mm square. With the top now flat I planed the two lengths of 300mm beech flat and square on all four sides. To make these large dovetail’s is best to allow enough time. One wrong move and its toast.
What’s wrong with this picture?
To make the dovetail’s I made a guide to run the saw along for the dado. What’s wrong with this picture? “The dovetails have been marked out wrong!” “That was close”.
Hence, allow enough time to take a breath and double check your layout.
After creating a saw cut across the grain with the guide. “Set correctly this time” I chiselled out the waste wood with a 24mm bevel edged chisel. Making sure to be a good 2mm above my line. Using the router plane to router down to my pencil line creating a good flat dado for the tail.
For the large tails. I used the same saw guide to create the angle of the dovetail. Then with the same 24mm chisel slowly paring my way back to the pencil line.
Take it easy on the final fitting. Removing the tiniest amount from either the tail or the dado as the dovetail is slid together. The tails face is 280mm away from the start.
Planing stop / dog holes
Deciding to use 19mm standard dog holes for the planning stop. Using an MFT top to plane wood is not ideal but the dog hole spacings work well.
The MFT top is manufactured square with the dog holes being parallel to the edges. Lining up the MFT top with the front edge of the workbench & clamping it down.
With a 19mm Forstner bit in the drill and a large square I kept moving the square around the drill keeping it in line whilst I bored the hole. I agree it may not be the best method. But it works!
With the dog holes drilled, I gave the top and sides a light plane and sand before applying a sealer coat of hard wax. Once the hard wax had dried overnight. Three coats of clear furniture wax were added. buffing off after each coat.
Thanks for reading
Best Matt North
There’s a simpler and cheaper workbench project for beginners with dimentions here
