The Workbench : A Complete Guide to Creating Your Perfect Bench

Rating:
Summary: This book delivers on building your own dream workbench
Review: After years of wanting my own dream workbench, I finally took the plunge and began building one this year. My workbench is a slight variation of one of the workbenches profiled in Mr. Schleining's book and I couldn't be happier with it.

This book covers many different designs of workbenches from traditional style benches, to European, to more modern workbenches (suited for the woodworker that uses more power tools). What I liked most about this book is that it not only covers some of the nation's most well-renowned woodworkers' workbenches, but Mr. Schleining also goes into great detail why their respective benches work.

Mr. Schleining does an excellent job of getting you to think about how you work in your shop to come up with your dream workbench. This is not a cookbook packed with a ton of plans. Instead, Mr. Schleining includes plans that are representative of today's styles such as Tage Frid's bench, the New Classic bench (modern), windsor chair maker Mike Dunbar's traditional bench (complete with wood screw vises), Niall Barrett's no-frills bench, and a Sam-Maloof style bench.

Each bench profile gives details on how to build the bench. But more importantly, Mr. Schleining arms you with a wealth of information to customize each bench to your liking, giving you the benefits and drawbacks for each design and add-on. For example, for those who wish to have cabinets under their bench, Mr. Schleining notes that his helps to add mass and storage space to the bench. But it also may impede your ability to clamp certain work pieces to your bench. Other examples include comparisons between wood and steel vise screws, round versus square dog holes, tool trays versus no tool trays, and a host of other feature comparisons. In addition, Mr. Schleining also provides a number of very helpful tips for building your own bench such as flattening the bench top, using offset-pinned tenons, picking the right location for your vises, and others.

This book is more than just a show-and-tell piece on different workbenches. It provides inspiration, practical advice, and detailed plans for those planning on making their own dream workbench someday. Even if you aren't interested in making your own workbench, Mr. Schleining provides ample information for regarding pre-made workbench kits, bench tops, and custom-built workbenches.

As a woodworker just returning to the craft after a ten year hiatus, Mr. Schleining does an excellent job of communicating his ideas through his pointed prose and his numerous color photographs. I give my highest recommendation for this book.

Rating:
Summary: Great photos
Review: Great photos of some of the most widely know and respected woodworkers at their benches. I have not read the book in depth, as yet, but the photos are worth the cost of the book alone.


Rating:
Summary: Needs to be a bit more detailed
Review: I recently started building a bench that is featured in this book (the one that appeared in the 3rd edition of Fine Woodworking's Tools&Shops magazine). This bench design is excellent and incorporates all the best of traditional european-style cabinet maker benches and some new modern touches such as the Veritas twin screw vice. This book's design is incomplete. For instance, how much of a gap is there between the two legs? How far in did he start the slight elevation of the sleigh feet and how high is that elevation? Where do the mortises for the stretchers start? These are questions that are not answered in the design. While most woodworkers change the designs around to suit their needs, it would be nice to have a good starting point with the designs.

I found the pictures to be excellent (although most are probably ones you've seen before if you've subscribed to Find Woodworking).

This book is more-or-less complete, but I think if you're going to build a bench you are going to want buy this book AND the Workbench book (especially if you plan to build a traditional tail vice which I find to be very complicated and the pictures in both make it clearer). I like the binding in the Workbench book better, since the hardcover binding is kind of hard to lay flat and it costs more.