# looking for bench plan



## The Aspen Woodshop (Dec 31, 2012)

I'm looking for a simple bench plan. This will be my first. Right now I'm working on a pair of 2x12's on saw horses. I mostly do scroll saw work. But, i'd like to get into other small projects.

Thanks
Harold P.


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## against_the_grain (Aug 15, 2010)

http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/18985/still-dont-have-a-workbench-this-one-is-easy


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## amckenzie4 (Apr 29, 2010)

I built mine in a few weekends, and a couple of sawhorses would be plenty of space to work. It's entirely focused on handtools, though, so if you're mainly going to be using power tools it might need some tweaking. It's also small, but would be fairly easy to scale up (and it'd be seriously heavy if you did!). The overall dimensions are about 51" long, 25" deep, and (not counting the tool rack) about 

There's an entry I wrote about it here: http://cheapsawdust.blogspot.com/2012/12/an-inexpensive-bench.html

And here's the mandatory pretty picture:


Bench 1 by a_mckenzie_4, on Flickr

I hope there's enough design detail there to get people going, but if you want more details I can provide them.


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## Effingham (Dec 2, 2012)

Mr. McKensie, that is a magnificent bench. I'm currently in the planning stages for my wood/armouring shop, and I'm collecting bench designs as I plan to have a couple or three bench zones for different projects (one with a permanently mounted grinder/sander wheel setup), and one thing I'm really looking for is this kind of stability and mass. I've seen so many bench plans (and bench kits) that look like they'd move all over the place if you tried to do anything with weight and force like hand sawing, hammer-thwacking, or planing. Yours? I think it would take a small nuke to move it.


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## amckenzie4 (Apr 29, 2010)

Thanks! It's remarkably solid. As I said in the full article, a lot of the credit goes to either ShopNotes or Woodsmith, I can't recall which. They did an article titled something like "An heirloom bench" that I cribbed from quite liberally. The main difference is that mine is douglas fir and plywood, while theirs was high-end hardwood. I admit, theirs looks better, but I bet mine weighs as much and works as well. :laughing:

Do feel free to read the full entry and ask questions. That was originally intended to be about two paragraphs with a couple of photos, so it's a little disorganized.

Oh -- and it's not as hard to move as you'd expect. The leg bottoms tend to slide, which is one reason it's on the padding (the other, of course, being to protect the floor). Once the legs are anchored, though, there's no racking or shifting. Vigorous work with a rasp or hand saw can get the stuff in the tool rack rattling together, but the bench itself doesn't move. If I was doing it again, I'd chamfer the bottoms of the legs, and put rubber pads on them directly. I may still do that once I've moved again (this month).


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## nblasa (Nov 29, 2011)

Woodsmithshop.com has free plans that I believe are titled "Weekend workbench" though you may have to dig through the plans a bit and they require you to sign up for their weekly e-tips. I'm in plan stages of building my own and what I'm doing is finding things that I like from a lot of designs and modifying them to what will fit my needs. The weekend workbench doesn't have a laminated top, which I personally prefer, but that doesn't mean you can't tweek it


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## amckenzie4 (Apr 29, 2010)

Yup. Really, for my purposes, I wanted:
1) Heavy.
2) Small.
3) Attractive, or at least not ugly.
4) A good vise.

I looked at a lot of options (I'm still somewhat enamored of the "new fangled workbench"), and picked the features I liked, then used the wood I could afford.


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