Tools, Spaces, Robots and Widgets
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Traditional woodworker’s bench
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Traditional woodworker’s bench
I’ve been building up my “2 car garage shop” for about 10 years preparing for retirement from health care. This spring I finally quit punching the time clock. Over the same time I’ve build 13 mandolins and 4 guitars. Now I pretty much have all my tools in place and enough wood stored to build for quite some time. My work benches are built with a heavy door for a top and base cabinets I scavenged from work. Lately I have toyed with the idea of replacing one of them with a true woodworker’s bench with a couple nice vises, like a Sjoberg’s. I don’t do CNC and still shape my mandolin tops by hand and use planes for some other processes. I don’t see myself automating. I’m old. So, what do you all use for work benches? And why?
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9 Replies
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In the center of my work area is a cabinet built by my grandfather with doors and drawers. On top of that is the band saw, drill press, metal vise and router table (which I use for my up close assembly and mod area.) Around the perimeter of the room is the old kitchen countertop supported by various cabinets from kitchen and bath remodels, as well as a console tv case with doors. This area holds my sanding station and my miter saw. Underneath is various wood scraps from any number of projects. Not a totally dedicated guitar area, but it works just fine.
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I have two main work surfaces. The first picture is my bench, which is about 60″L x 24″W x about 40″H. I made this in college out of white ash with a 3/4″ melamine top. It just seemed like the exact dimensions I would need and I’ve never thought twice about in in the past 12 years or so. I use it every day and it’s great. I chose melamine with a white surface for the top as I thought it would be helpful for adding light/brightness to the shop. The second workstation is my workbench island, also made in college, mostly made out of MDF with a melamine top. The top measures 6′ x 4′ and has lots of space underneath for drawers, shelves, and a vacuum. I put my bandsaw and sander on here, and it has enough space to multiple guitars, I also do routing here occasionally. These are not beautifully made, it’s purely about function.
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I am impressed by this idea also:
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I usually build my own with 4x4s for legs, 2x4s for a top and bottom platform and then a melamine topper. I like the melamine because it resists spilled adhesives. I also like that I can easily make the bench any height I choose which is critical for someone with a crappy back. I put the bench top at my belly button to prevent the urge to hunch over while I work.
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I see. I get the back thing. I struggle with headaches from all this kind of movement. Carve a mandolin top, get a headache.
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I built this bench in 2010 and use it to this day. The little slots on the sides are my favorite and most hated part. Favorite is when you push a guitar around while working, the guitar will push tools and parts you didn’t know were there into the slots instead of the guitar rolling over the pickguard screw and doing you know what. Also the slots will catch parts and tools preventing them from falling on the floor and being lost forever (that has saved many a tuner screw over the years). Hated is that I tend to let the slots fill with all kinds of random stuff and they become a mess (probably 50+ tuners screws in them by now). I made the ends of the slots sloped so it would be easy to wipe out sawdust or whatever other debauchery is found in there, seems to work well. I opted for pegboard on the sides instead of drawers because I have learned I’m not responsible enough to keep drawers organized and useable but I can be trusted to keep pegboard tools somewhat organized.
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That’s impressive! I found a Sjoberg’s Elite in very good condition on FBMP and offered the seller a ridiculous price. They bit, so that’s what I ended up with. I hurt for 2 days after tearing apart the old bench and converting it into a potting station for my daughter and moving the new one in. I wanted the vises and already love them. They are a vast improvement over my little Craftsman vise. I had lots of tools on the back of the old one and now have a clear area to work.
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If you’re building guitars more than repairing, a modern bench that has a gobar deck built over the whole bench is going to be a lot more useful than a traditional woodworkers bench…mostly they are optimized for cabinet work and beating on with big mallets. A gobar deck that covers your whole bench is super handy and I like a much higher bench for making guitars.
Just my opinion. Christopher Shwarz’s workbench talk is helpful, basically a bench is built to do certain things, that was helpful for me to know.
I’d love to make a big Ruobo style bench but it wouldn’t really offer me anything that my current bench doesn’t, at least guitar wise.
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I actually do have a piece of plywood above my bench for a go bar deck that works well. I also still carve my mandolin tops and backs by hand and the work holding on this table is going to be very helpful(I think anyway) in holding the frame that holds the back or top while I carve. Plus I do hand planing on some parts. So far so good, but I have not done much work because fall is here and the blistering NC heat is gone and well, I just want to be outside……Winter is coming and I’ll be in there soon enough.
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