Apologies in advance as this will be a photo-heavy post.
My First Workbench

Eventually, I lopped off the pegboard back and added a face vise. This bench then served as my primary bench for all woodworking, which is to say, it mainly held my lathe, which could be pushed out of the way when I needed the front half of the bench.
In addition to turning, I managed to complete a few other projects, including a shaker candle stand, cabinets, and picture frames. However, with a thin OSB top, lack of squareness, lack of work holding for face work, and poor front vise setup, the bench has been poorly suited building new hand tool skills. Additionally, at four feet long, I was unable to support my lathe with a bed extension. That meant I haven’t been able to turn more than 18 inches between centers, precluding turning chair spindles.
Time For A Change – Figuring Out What To Build
Once I decided to build a new bench, the first task at hand was to read and watch as much as I could about workbench design. I started by reading Workbenches (from Design & Theory to Construction & Use) from Chris Schwarz. If you’re even dreaming about building a workbench, this is a great place to start. While plans are included for a few different bench styles, the discussion about the why of design choices is even more informative. That said, when I got down to the actual build, I would turn to the book to answer questions like “just how high should the stretcher between the front legs be?”
Other written sources included online plans for benches, blog posts, and articles in both Popular Woodworking and Fine Woodworking.
In addition, I watched a number of YouTube videos, including Paul Sellers bench build series. I also watched a couple of episodes of The Woodwright’s Shop, including an early episode (in Season 3 of the show!)
and a pain of episodes recreating a French workbench with a narrow top, splayed rear legs, and tool well. I’ve seen both Part I and Part II of this build a couple of times on PBS and was a fan of the general design.
Settling on a Design
After too much reading and watching, I knew a couple of things:
- I wanted a bench that is between five and six feet long.
- I want a bench no deeper than about 22 inches.
- The new bench needs to be heavy.
- It needs a thick top (for heft)
- It needs to be solid.
With that in mind, I started to design a bench in the Roubo-style, made out of laminated SYP. Firing up Sketchup, I started making laminations and put together an initial idea. It consisted of 15 laminations of ripped down 2×12 stock for a final width of about 22 inches. Four legs would be laminated and mortised into the top, each with a double tenon. A leg vise would be added to the front left leg and I would install my Yost quick release vise on the right side as a tail vise.
That is about as far as I made it with this design. I never got around to adding in stretchers, shelves, or figuring out a dog or holdfast arrangement.
As I noted above, I was a fan of the French Bench design demonstrated by Roy Underhill. As much as I liked that design, he used a sliding dovetail for both the front legs and rear, splayed, legs, that seemed (and still does seem) a bit too intimidating for my current skill set. I figured that I wouldn’t be able to use splay-leg design as a result. However, I came across a great piece written by Jim McConnell on his blog The Daily Skep. In The Student Bench Takes Shape, he detailed building a couple small benches for