The Beginner Workbench
Construction Lumber and Just a Few Tools
What is the best beginner workbench? Wow, that’s a loaded question! Its one I get all the time. Usually I tell beginning woodworkers to hold off on building a bench right away because they don’t know what they don’t know yet and a workbench isn’t actually needed to get started.
For example, I’ve built a few things in the garage of my in law’s place in Maine using a sawhorse and a rickety table. But the time has come to build a proper workbench in that space. This workbench is designed to be possibly the first bench that a new woodworker would build. Though it could also end up being the workbench you use for many years as it is rock solid and highly functional. It is built using just construction lumber, 7 boards to be exact, and just 4 tools.
The beginner’s workbench should be simple to build, yet highly customizable for the future. It should be a rock solid, blank chassis that doesn’t require a lot of lumber or tools to build.
Its a straightforward built that introduces the new woodworker to some key concepts while not sweating the details that could make this project drag on for months and months. While hardly a new design, I think the approach I took to it could enable the brand new woodworker with no tools and no bench to actually get started building and come out of this experience a better woodworker
Full Build Coming Soon...
Semester .5 at The Hand Tool School will be a back to basics course designed to speak to the brand new woodworker who has no tools and has possibly never picked up a saw or plane.It will consist of a few introductory lessons and then many applied lessons in the course of building 3 essential projects for their shop. Its in production now and scheduled to be released this Fall. Watch this space or subscribe to my email list to be the first to hear about it when it become available.
