building the holtzapffel workbench -...

© www.wkFineTools.com 1 March 10, 2008

Building the Holtzapffel Workbench by David Pearce

In my attempt to learn the craft of woodworking, I have discovered that one of the most valuable tools a woodworker needs is a good workbench. Rather than delve into the details of my journey from doing general carpentry with power tools to learning the more traditional woodworkers methods using hand tools (which drove my reasoning to build a good, solid workbench), I want to take the approach of showing the process of building the bench using limited resources and relatively basic knowledge and skill of woodworking.

Hopefully, this will serve two purposes, first, allow those people with little skill or experience to feel more confident in taking on a project like this, and second, show some of the pitfalls I encountered not having a fully equipped shop (or even a partially equipped one!) at my disposal. These articles aren’t intended as the “best” advice for building a workbench, in fact, I’m guessing that more than a few people will read this and wonder why I ended up causing myself extra work.

For me, it’s all about learning. Of course, we should all be willing to take the suggestions we get, and learn from them where possible. Additionally, however, we should never be afraid to start something. In the end, I know I’ll make a lot of mistakes, but hopefully, I’ll come away from this project having learned something. Certainly more than if I’d never attempted it. I suggest you, the reader, approach this project in the same way.

My friend whose woodworking skills are far beyond mine gave me this advice at the start of my project: “It’s your first bench, so don’t worry about it too much. In about 2 years time you’ll probably look at it, and want to make another one.”

With that said, let me start by offering a short background on how I found out about this design, and why it appealed to me.

It just so happens that I subscribe to Popular Woodworking. I began to read more of Chris Schwarz’s writing, and eventually figured out, he was a bit of a bench builder himself. He wrote a great workbench background article in the June issue of Popular Woodworking called “Woodworking Essentials-Rules for Workbenches”, which basically explains what a good workbench consists of. Reading his blog entries one day (http://www.woodworking-magazine.com/blog/), I found out there was a tool swap scheduled at John Sindelar’s shop in Michigan. My friend and I took the trip up to check out the show, and to hopefully add to my meager tool collection. The show turned out differently than I planned due to the fact that by the time we arrived many of the dealers had packed up and left. However, it was still a great trip because not only did I get to see John’s fantastic collection of tools, I was able to see Chris’s Holtzapffel style bench up close and personal. It really looked like a bench a woodworker would use. Sturdy and large, were the two things that came to my mind. I left that day thinking this was the bench I’d like to build.


Fortunately, by reading further on Chris’s blog, I found out he was including the bench and plans in the next issue of Woodworking Magazine (Issue #8). I won’t attempt to reproduce the plans or layout of this bench in this article. Chris has done a far better job of that anyway. I’d recommend to anyone thinking about building a bench to buy a copy of Woodworking Magazine issue #8 for themselves (As well as the June 2007 issue of Popular Woodworking) and read firsthand about it. Incidentally, Chris is also publishing a book dedicated to various benches and bench design. I’ll be standing in line when the book becomes available and I suspect anyone serious enough to undertake this type of project will want it also.

After comparing the Holtzapffel’s design to the myriad of others I found, I reasoned the design wasn’t terribly complicated, and in some cases, even less so. Still, it wasn’t going to be easy. The framing and top are quite large both in joinery and scale. It’s not like building an end table, or some other piece of normal household furniture. The tenons are big, and the framing pieces are unwieldy. The top itself was another challenge all together. I was hoping to use hand tools primarily, and leave the power tools tucked away. Unfortunately, this was a bit of wishful thinking on my part. Not only were my skills a little lacking for that task, so were my available hand tools.

I’ll start the next installment with the actual bench building process itself. Until then, grab a copy or two of Woodworking Magazine and read up.

Part II

Cutting for the Top

I began building the top from 2x8 Southern Yellow Pine I had picked up from the local big box lumber store. It was one of the types of wood Chris Schwarz recommended for bench building. Luckily, it’s relatively cheap here in central Ohio. An 8 foot board was about $7.00. I certainly could have spend a lot more on Maple or some other hardwood, but I tried to keep the advice from my friend in mind that I might be building a new table in a few short years after I use it for awhile. No sense in spending a large amount of money on my first shot at this.

I did notice something about the larger home improvement stores around here. When I asked about Southern Yellow Pine, the store clerks weren’t sure what I was talking about. Eventually, after walking down a couple isles, I remembered that it’s used for floor joists a lot. So when I “re-phrased” my question, it was much easier to locate. After picking through most of the pile to get past the warped, cracked, split, and generally bad boards, I managed to select enough decent pieces to take home. Since it’s a dimensional lumber used for framing floors it has the typical rounded edges, so an obvious step was to rip the boards down in order to get a nice crisp edge.

I’m nowhere near competent enough with a hand saw for long rips, and using a circular saw meant clamping guides over and over again which would eat up a lot of time and effort. So I opted to use my small table saw. Because it’s only a small 10 inch


portable bench top table saw, I also decided I needed to get the pieces as close to their intended length as possible first for safety’s sake, before trying to feed them through and trim off the edges.

So using my circular saw, I cut the boards for the top down to 6 feet in length, and while I was at it, I cut down the legs and stretcher parts to their respective lengths. I left nearly an inch extra for the boards that will made up the top, so I’d be able to square up the length with my circular saw after gluing up all the boards. My reasoning was, if my glue ups were sloppy or if the top got out of square, then I’d have the ability to trim a half an inch at least from either side without losing my 6’ in length.

My other reason for using 2x8’s I was able to make the top 3 ½ inches thick. I figured if I nicked off about a quarter inch on either side, to take off the rounded edges and then used the freshly cut side against the table saw fence set at 3 ½ inches, I’d come out with a slight amount of waste, but not a lot. That seemed to work out well.

Even though they were cut to length, the stretchers and boards for the top presented a challenge for that small of a table saw. I had to use various tables and rollers to get a proper infeed and outfeed area so feeding those boards through didn’t cause me serious injury. Not only did I have this to deal with, I also had to deal with less than perfect lumber. Anyone using a table saw to cut a board that’s slightly warped knows binding or twisting can be a serious issue. Kickback is something I’ve experienced and I don’t care to experience it again.

Laminating the Boards Together

I didn’t get a picture of the laminating process, which basically was gluing two boards together, clamping them overnight, gluing two more boards together with the first two, clamping them overnight, and so on, adding two boards at a time until I ended up with the 24 inches I needed for the width. And yes, I ended up buying a number of clamps. I have two 48 inch bar clamps (Jorgensen's) which are reasonably priced around here, and six 3/4 inch pipe clamps (Pittsburg Steel). The pipe clamp hardware was cheap. I purchased it separately at a local discount outlet, and then bought 3/4 inch threaded pipe from the local home improvement center. I ended up buying 60 inch pipes. I figured if I needed a clamp to hold together something 48 inches wide, I wouldn’t have to make another trip to the store.


Workbench top glued and ready for smoothing.

I did notice something about these pipe clamps. They don’t have very wide clamping faces. They’re only a little over half of the 3 ½ inches that the boards I’m gluing up were. Once I put down the pipe clamps on the folding table, laid the boards on top of the pipes to glue them up and tightened the clamps, I realized the top edge of my boards weren’t very tight. Most of the pressure was on the middle and lower portion of the boards. Thankfully I had the two bar clamps. Using those across the top, I managed to get enough pressure to squeeze the top edge tight. So if you’re thinking of using pipe clamps, either get some with wider clamping faces or invest in four or more 48 inch bar clamps. The wider faced cabinet style clamps would probably be best for this, but those are more expensive and I’m on a budget, so I made do with what I could afford.


The end, although close, will still need squaring up with a circular saw. Leaving an inch or so for now seams to be the best course of action.

Incidentally, I used an entire 16 oz. bottle of Titebond 3 on this step and for gluing up the legs. I probably could’ve used more. I started out putting a zig-zag pattern on the faces to be glued up. What I should’ve done was put a nice thin layer on one side using a foam brush. This method seems to help in getting a nice even fit between the two surfaces without a lot of leftover glue leaking out. The zig-zag pattern I used at first left me with a couple of boards that didn’t remain tight after a few days. Luckily, they were on the outsides, and I simply used a hand chisel and a mallet down the length to carefully wedge between them until they came apart. Luckily, there was no splitting or cracking. After cleaning off the old dried on glue, I reapplied fresh glue using a foam brush and an even coat, re-clamped the assembly and that seems to be holding up better.

Gluing and clamping a large number of long pieces together to form the top, according to what I read, can end up leaving the finished product less than square, due to the clamping pressure required. I don’t have a power planer or a belt sander, so my only recourse will be to cut the ends smooth, and then use a hand plane on the faces of the long side to “square” things up. If the faces are really bad, I suppose I could clamp down a straight edge and use my circular saw to even it out. Hopefully, I won’t have to do that. I’ll be able to gauge that task more accurately once I get the top onto the assembled legs.

Smoothing Practice

I have to admit something. I’ve never in my life used a hand plane before, other than to smooth out an ill-fitting gate assembly for our privacy fence. I never even knew


a “new” plane wasn’t even properly sharpened out of the box! At least one in the price range I could afford. When I started this project, I realized I’d have to use a hand plane on the bench top. My first lesson was that the inexpensive smoothing plane I bought a few years back was probably not going to be as useful as I thought. It certainly didn’t have a decent edge. After learning how to sharpen using sandpaper (the “Scary Sharp” method), I practiced on every scrap board I had. No matter what I tried I never got decent results. Ok, so maybe my sharpening skills need work, I can understand that, but I had a feeling my tool itself was not as good as I had hoped.

After reading a lot about hand planes, and asking more questions from knowledgeable people, I was able to pinpoint part of the problem. The plane I was using was more suited to “smoothing” than “jointing”. Jointing was what I needed to do to that top. Smoothing would come later after the top was decently prepared.

Using the Stanley #6 plane to smooth out the bottom of the top.

Fortunately, there was a flea market of sorts nearby and I was able to procure a Stanley No. 6 Jointer Plane. It was a fairly nice specimen, pretty well cleaned up and decently sharp. After trying it out on some scrap, I went ahead and gave it the “scary-sharp” treatment, which it did need, and decided to try it out on my top. I turned the top over and decided to practice on the bottom first, just in case. After about a half hour, I had almost half of the job finished and I was getting nice thin wood shavings. I was quite pleased that my efforts at learning to hand plane were paying off quite nicely. I couldn’t believe the difference a good tool can make. The No. 6 was working so much better than my cheap “new” plane.

With the bottom of the top smoothed out, I decided I would wait until the top was mounted on the legs before smoothing out the actual work surface side. Of the articles


I’ve read, this seems to be the preferred method of finishing the top off before drilling the dog holes and mounting the clamp assemblies.

With the top looking decent, we’re on to the next installment, where I’ll get into the parts for the base.

Part III

Base parts and rough cuts.

You might’ve read back on the first page, that I figured the top would give me the most trouble. Well, I was wrong. The base has been the biggest challenge so far. The amount of work I’ve put into the base far exceeds the top at this point. The base is essentially like Chris Schwarz’s version I mentioned earlier, with one important modification. It is sized for my height and arm length. According to Chris, one of the more important tenants of good workbench design is the working height of the bench itself. Too high, and your arms and shoulders will bear the brunt of the work. Too low, and your back will let you know sooner than later. By choosing the height based on a simple formula he recommends, I should be able to use my legs, as well as all those other parts I mentioned in concert with the tool, and save myself a few bucks on ibuprofen and chiropractic services in the process.

Two legs clamped and glued up from two identical 30 inch x 5 inch x 3 ½ inch boards and one leg with the tenon cut.


The first challenge was getting the legs ready. They’re nothing more than a couple of boards glued together to achieve the desired thickness required for a sturdy bench. Once again, I decided to rely on the small table saw I have to speed the process along. As usual, cutting straight edges using it proved to be an education. I finally figured out, if I glued them together first, then took a couple of crosscut passes over the table saw using the miter guide, I ended up with a better set of legs. Cutting each board separately then gluing them up always left a slight difference in each board. Once they’re glued up, the difference becomes more obvious apparently due to the fact that my lumber isn’t exactly perfect and maybe somewhat due to distortion from the clamping pressure.

Maybe it’s just me learning the finer points of the tool, but I can’t help think it’s also got a little bit to do with the size and quality of the table saw.

A little later on, I got the chance to remake a leg. Not by choice actually, but only because I screwed up the mortise. I was able to verify that gluing prior to final cutting did indeed make a difference in quality.

It’s all about the Tenons

Both the legs and the stretchers for the base are mortise and tenon joints, according to Chris’ article and plans. I honestly couldn’t remember if I have ever made this type of joint before. After my attempt at it, I was pretty sure I hadn’t.

Beginning the tenon work on the side stretchers. “Kerfs” in the work piece after multiple passes over the table saw.


Basically, in my case, it consisted of making multiple passes at the area with a table saw blade set to the exact (or near enough) height I wanted to cut off. Not exactly my finest work, I’ll say that much. I should mention I also don’t have a dado blade. These pictures show the kerfs I made in the wood to trim off the waste from the work piece. The idea is that after this step, I’ll use a chisel and clean off the rest of the waste, leaving a nice tenon to work with. Initially, it was my intention to use a backsaw and practice my cutting technique. But I didn’t have a good sharp backsaw and my burn pile was getting larger than my good wood pile, so I didn’t want to encourage that any further. I decided to make a jig to help my table saw cut those tenons.

Table saw jig for cutting tenons.

Essentially, this is an approximation of the jig found in issue 163 of Popular Woodworking magazine (Table Saw Tenon Jig, by Robert W.Lang, August 2007). Additionally, you can find the article online here .


The jig certainly helped me cut the smaller edges of the short stretchers’ tenons. I hadn’t tried it on the larger face of those work pieces until later, which is when the picture above was taken, during the time I had to make up a new set of side stretchers (more on that later). At any rate, it worked fine for what I used it for and saved me from trying to cut a straight line with unsharpened handsaws.

Chiseling off the waste materials were more of a challenge than I expected also. It wouldn’t have been so difficult if I had sharpened my chisels better. One pitfall that I was not expecting was the fact that even though I’d read quite a bit about sharpening, I never really knew what a truly sharp edge supposed to be like. This would cause me to expend a lot of extra effort and time.

Stretchers ready for chiseling.

I used a method of sharpening I’ve seen referred to as “scary sharp”. It’s a fairly inexpensive idea, and if applied properly, works quite well. There is plenty of info online concerning this method as well as in issue 161 of Popular Woodworking magazine (Sensible Sharpening by Michael Dunbar, April 2007).

After my first try, I thought I had my edges good and sharp. You’ll notice the tenons in the picture below as my “practice” run using my chisels.


Working off the waste on the tenons with chisels. A sharper chisel would’ve make faster and more accurate work of this step.

This step took more work (and sweat) than necessary simply due to the fact I needed a better edge. You can see the kerf marks left in the wood even after I spent a good deal of time trying to smooth them out with the chisel. What you don’t see here is the terribly chipped up and uneven results I ended up with after trying to get too aggressive with that not-so-sharp tool. Southern yellow pine can be a bit splintery and tends to break off in pieces if you don’t have a good sharp edge. If I had more experience, this would’ve been my first clue the tools needed more work.


A few more passes with the chisel, and the tenon is looking better.

My tenons on the stretchers ended up being a little smaller than they were supposed to be in thickness, only because before I’d realized it, I’d taken up carving in the middle of my bench building project. Or at least that’s what it felt like. After quite a few frustrating evenings in the shop, the stretcher tenons were finally looking better. Still far from perfect, but nicer than when I first started.


Cleaner looking tenons, although much more work than I should’ve put into it.

After I was somewhat satisfied with this step, I went to work on the legs and their tenons. Incidentally, I did manage to sharpen the chisels a little bit more during this stage of the project, and began receiving a better cut as a result. Of course, it would’ve been nice, if a light had gone off in my head and I realized I still wasn’t attaining a proper edge on my tools and I should’ve spent another hour or so sharpening.

Leg tenons cut (with a backsaw this time), chiseled, and ready for mortising.

What you don’t see in the above photo is the fact that I was able to use a nice sharp backsaw in cutting these tenons. A friend graciously allowed me to borrow one of his to try out and test my saw skills. Needless to say, my skills were a bit lacking. I wandered off the line both inside and outside on almost every cut. This was partly due to the fact that my sawhorse was a B&D workmate, which was not even close to a proper height for sawing, and mostly due to my inexperience.


Cutting the side tenon. My cut soon wandered proud of the line.

Later on, I spent quite a lot of time chiseling those faces, and as a result I lost some thickness both on the faces and sides. What would have been nice was to have a shoulder plane handy at this stage. It probably wouldn’t have helped on the thickness issue, but it would’ve saved my fingers a lot of wear and tear, and probably made my sawing mistakes less noticeable.

Having a useable backsaw was a mixed blessing. It allowed me to practice cutting without having to rely on a table saw and a jig, but at the same time, it showed how much I had left to learn about this technique. You’ll notice in the picture above my angle of attack on the work piece. Not the best way to go about this task and more than likely, it contributed to my problem.


A better angle for the cut.

My fourth and fifth tries were much better. I climbed up onto the workmate and was able to attain a much better angle on the piece. I still had some trouble wandering off the line with the cut, but it didn’t occur as often, and was less noticeable overall. In the end, when I brought the saw through the work to complete the cut, nearly all of my waste pieces fell off without any force, which means I was at least hitting my mark at the end of the cut. That didn’t mean I wasn’t still off line, but at least I was consistently off in both directions. I’ve decided my next project after this bench is done will be a sawhorse.


Mortising for Fun and Endurance

Next task in the project was to begin drilling out for the mortises. Remember, I have very little equipment and my budget didn’t allow for a lot of specialized power tools. No mortising machine here and no free ones at the store, so instead I relied upon some old fashioned sweat and another borrowed hand tool. The brace you see in the picture below was in great shape and it even came with the correct size auger bit to cut my mortises.

This was a lot of work. I mean a lot. Never mind the temperature in my garage was nearly in the 90’s even at night and there was enough humidity in the air to fill a swimming pool up twice over. The actual effort in using the brace wasn’t all that terrible, but after a solid hour and a half (plus a break and a cold beer) of drilling out mortises in each of the legs, I was whipped. I probably should’ve tackled this task in stages. Hollowing out the mortise, spending some time with a chisel, then going back to the brace again would’ve probably given me enough of a breather and allowed my muscles to recover a bit from the work of hand drilling. In addition to that, since my workmate is a little too high, I had to use my chin against my hand to get enough downward pressure on the brace. It wasn’t until I couldn’t nod my head the next morning did I realize just exactly how much pressure I was applying. That unpleasant sensation only lasted about 2 days.


After some chiseling work on the mortise, the waste is out of the way and final tuning can commence.

I was fortunate to have a nice mortising chisel, purchased just a few days before it was actually needed. This was important to get my corners squared up and the bottom of the mortise cleaned out properly. Without this tool, I’m not sure how I would’ve completed this step. It was purchased used, and apparently, there are many good examples of these tools out and about in the general public. Mine was acquired through a contact made on the old tools email list (howdy Galoots!) I’d joined not long before starting this project.

Once again, practice was the key. My first couple passes at this rendered some rough results. Later on, I found my mortises would improve, and even take less time to make. I suppose there is a whole article in the fact that practice is many times necessary and rarely attempted before diving into a project.


Cleaning the edges out with a chisel.

Now that I had some progress, I tried some basic dry fitting on the side stretchers’ tenons. Once again, I found myself with chisel in hand attempting to smooth out the not so perfect work I had in front of me. This was, once again, a long, laborious task. The majority of my time at this point was spent bent over the workmate trying to achieve smooth, even sides and bottoms in the mortises.

After getting the four mortises cleaned out for the side stretchers, and managing to get the dry fitting to work, I turned my attention to the mortises for the longer sides, the front and the back stretchers.

Disaster Strikes

Not that I expected everything to go smoothly, but I had thought I knew how to read a tape measure and a ruler. Apparently not. As I was cutting out the first mortise for the longer front stretcher, I decided to see how close I was getting to a good fit and attempted to dry fit the parts together. There was nearly a quarter inch of the tenon sticking out of the joint. “Really odd”, I thought to myself, and so I measured the tenon again, and the mortise again, and sure enough, the mortise was at least a quarter inch shy on depth. I took out my mortising chisel and went to work. After about 10 minutes of working the piece I heard a distinct crackling sound. Sure enough, it was the sound of wood splitting out the back of the piece.


An unintentional through tenon?

I had miscalculated my front tenons and dug too deep a mortise in the receiving piece. All the work in trimming down, gluing up, drilling, chiseling, and fitting up the side mortise, and nearly finishing the mortise for the front stretcher, was down the tubes. If there was a way to salvage this I didn’t know about it. I decided to start back at square one again with this leg. Fortunately, this happened on my first leg, so shortening the tenons on the front and back stretchers were all that was needed to save those parts from the burn pile.


Another leg gluing up.

Back to the table saw I went, keeping in mind some of the lessons learned on my first try at this. The result was a much better looking set of boards for gluing up. At least this time I knew enough to not make the same mistakes twice.

After my pieces were cut close enough to length, I glued them up, and left them clamped overnight before the final cut. Next day was a busy day elsewhere, so I unclamped my leg and set it aside while other duties took precedence.


What happens when you glue together less than dry dimensional lumber, in a humid garage, using a slightly bowed board.

Upon returning to the garage the following morning, I found the two pieces had begun to separate themselves so much, there wasn’t much hope of ever getting them back together. After about 10 minutes and 10 different emotional states, I decided to pry the two boards apart and see if one was straight enough to salvage. As good fortune would have it, I did manage to save half the work. I suppose this is the trouble you run into using dimensional lumber, which probably wasn’t quite dry enough, along with working in a un-air conditioned garage in the middle of August in Ohio during a triple digit heat wave. I’m sure it didn’t help much that I selected probably the worst piece of bowed lumber, either.

At least, one board was still quite straight, so all I had to do was cut another single piece and proceed to glue up again. This time that part of the job went off without a hitch.

Next up, I had to drill out the mortises again.


Marking out the mortise for the new leg.

First thing to do was mark it out, and get it ready. I never spent so much time verifying a measurement in my life. I wanted to be certain I didn’t make another mistake so soon in the process of getting the new leg ready. Each step was a bit like walking on pins and needles at this point. I wasn’t so concerned about the cost, because as I mentioned earlier, Yellow Pine is fairly cheap in these parts, I just didn’t want to have to start over on a part, yet again.


Drilling out the mortise.

The last time I used a brace and hand power to make the mortises, and I would’ve done so again, except like I mentioned earlier, my chin was still sore from using it to apply pressure to the brace. I followed Chris’s advice and didn’t bother with the cordless drill. There’s nothing that wears out a battery (and burns up a drill) faster than boring large holes into thick lumber. It’s always good to have a regular old corded drill about the house.

I also purchased a couple of Freud’s Forstner bits to try out. Even though they weren’t very much, they did a bang up job of clearing out the wood. I’d definitely recommend a couple in your toolbox.


The effects of a good Forstner bit. Drilling the mortise. Again.

The boring job was quickly completed and all that was left to do was find where I put those chisels and trim out the rest of the waste.

This time, however, before using them, I decided I would spend an entire afternoon sharpening my tools as thoroughly as possible. I re-read Michael Dunbar’s article in search of parts I missed or forgot. As it turns out, I missed more than I realized. The portion that talked about the various grits to use was one area where I hadn’t paid enough attention. Sure enough, I didn’t have a few of the necessary grits I should’ve had. A quick trip to the local automotive parts store rectified that problem.

The next area where I didn’t pay enough attention was one of the first steps. Get the back of the tool as flat as possible before moving on the beveled edges. And as it turns out, I wasn’t following the actual motion of sharpening discussed in the article either. No wonder I had so much difficulty using these tools.

So after a careful analysis of the details, I setup up my homemade sharpening station again, and went to work.


Homemade sharpening station with a glass sheet on top of some old leftover MDF and a little bit of quarter round trim to hold it in place.

As you can see in the photo above, I’m working on the back of the chisel first, with the roughest grit to flatten the back. This and working the chisel through each of the progressively finer grits allowed me to achieve the “mirror finish” Michael discussed in his article. By the time I’d finished with the 1200 grit (Michael recommends 1500 as the final stage, but I couldn’t find it in the store), the blade was so sharp, it was scary! Well, I suppose that’s why they call it “Scary Sharp” after all.

My fingers were about ground to the bone after about 5 blades (and a couple of plane blades, too), but it was worth it. The tools cut like hot knives through butter this time. The effort expended with cleaning out the mortises was much less than before.

If anyone doubts their edges are sharp, they should automatically spend time on the sharpening side of things before attempting further work. In my opinion, it’s a necessity. I’ve got a pretty good idea now of what it’s like working with a sharp tool, and what its like with a not-so-sharp tool. I would have no trouble choosing which one I prefer.

Bed Bolts in a workbench?

I’ve read a few things here and there on joining wood, so I thought I’d be clever and try out a method using what’s called “bed bolts”. It’s not very complicated, and I thought it might be worth it, because it would allow me to disassemble the bench if I should ever need to store it, or move it. You might remember, from earlier on in the article, I discussed Chris’s technique at joining these pieces together. He used


drawboring quite successfully, and that was my initial plan as well. After thinking about it, I decided I’d use something maybe not quite so advanced for my first try. Little did I realize there are pitfalls to be had no matter which methods I tried.

For using a bed bolt system, the gist of the technique is to drill out the mortised piece to accept a bolt, which would run though into the tenon. The tenon is then drilled out from the top and/or bottom, so you can access the end of the bolt, presumably with enough room to add a nut and a washer. By tightening the nut down, you’d draw in the tenon tight to the mortise and create a nice tight fit without using glue. At least that’s my take on it.

Drilling out the side stretcher for the bed bolt assembly.

In practice, this should work well, and allow for disassembly and reassembly without much trouble. For me, the trouble starts when joining large pieces such as the tenons on this bench. I needed a fairly long bit to make the hole necessary, and I had to drill nice and straight. The first part was easy to accomplish. A quick trip down to the local supply store, and a couple of dollars later, I had a long enough bit in hand. The second part, wasn’t quite as easy.


Off center with the “bed bolt”.

As I was drilling out the hole for the nut and washer I took special care to mark off the position right on center of the stretcher. This was the piece with the tenon, by the way. As you can see from the above photo, my initial bore into the mortised piece, and then into the stretcher wasn’t really very straight. But this was my second pass at it, and the first try came out great, so I figured, third times a charm and began working on the next one.


“Bed bolt” assembly blows out the top of the side stretcher.

The borehole was so far off center on the third attempt, out of frustration, I ended up purposely misusing a drill bit to widen the hole and center it up. As it turned out, I weakened the stretcher so badly that when I tried to tighten it down, I blew out the top. Too much wood was removed and so there wasn’t enough holding power. I’m fairly certain once I get the hang of drilling a little better, and maybe using the brace on something like this, instead of a power drill, I’ll be able to conquer this type of joinery without a lot of difficulty. But not this time.

Nearing Final Assembly

In the meantime though, I decided if I continued to try and use bed bolts, I’d probably end up damaging the legs to the point where nothing short of making a new set was in my future. So I took a break and thought out a new plan. I decided to use large lag screws and glue the legs into place permanently. With this method, the bench wouldn’t be as portable as I’d hoped, but at least it should be strong enough to do its job.


Drilling out side stretcher for the lag bolts.

After making a new pair of side stretchers (glad I over-bought on lumber), and attaining the lag screws, I set out making the new holes. It wasn’t too difficult this time to keep the bit straight. I switched to a slightly less long screw, so I didn’t have quite as long of a hole to bore out. And I was more attentive to what I was doing.


The side stretchers lagged together.

With the holes drilled, I coated the tenon and the mortise with a nice layer of glue, and clamped my ends tight. A couple of turns (too many to count) with the socket wrench and I was in business. After working my way around the base, I had both side stretchers and their respective legs assembled.

Nearing final assembly. Need to drill the long stretcher lag holes.

Lastly, I set about making the same holes for the longer front and back stretchers. Notice in the photo above, my long bar clamps came in handy again. Drilling out this set was a little faster and not so time consuming.

Before I could permanently attach the front stretcher, I wanted to cut a 45 degree angle on the top of it, so I could mount a sliding deadman for work holding. Took me a little bit of searching on the Internet to properly figure out what exactly a deadman was, and what it was used for but it certainly sounded like a good idea, so I’ll try it out.


Slicing out the 45 degree angle for the deadman.

My small table saw made quick work of the required 45 degree cut for the deadman, and I was nearing the final assembly for the base. At long last.

The base, from the side. Finally bolted together.


Here are a couple of photos with the base sitting on top of my as yet unfinished top. If you’ve been reading Chris Schwarz’s article, you’ll notice I’ve left out a few aesthetics, namely, the chamfered edges on the stretchers and legs, and the planed surfaces on the base itself. I didn’t have a good smoothing plane at the time I was building this, so I decided to maybe sand a little bit once the glue is dry to remove some of the less than nice looking spots. Who knows, maybe I’ll get creative and chamfer those pieces yet.

The base is done! Sitting on top of the “top”

I can safely say, I learned quite a few lessons on this part of the project. One thing I’m sure I learned was perseverance. If you’re unwilling to try new things, despite the fact that the outcome could be bad, you’ll probably never advance your skills. I’ve made more mistakes on this project than any home improvement task I’ve ever taken on, but I doubt I would’ve learned nearly as much if everything went smoothly.

The next installment will deal with the installation of the base to the top, and budget permitting, the installation of the clamping hardware as well. Stay tuned.


Part IV

Deadman’s Curve

It’s amazing that once you get to a certain point in a project even trivial tasks can be daunting. Forging ahead is sometimes the only way to go regardless of how many problems you might encounter in doing so. Once I arrived at the place where the top and the base were ready to be permanently mated, it seemed that every single mistake I’d made up until this point was about to be magnified.

My worry was that somehow the base and the top weren’t going to square up properly, or in joining the pieces, I might somehow amplify the issues of less than perfect cuts and joints. I had to remind myself more than once that this wasn’t some piece of furniture that’d end up in my living room, I’d be forced to stare at for the next 30 years, this was a workbench, and is intended to be worked on, hammered, scratched and abused. With that in mind I actually became more motivated to just get out there and work, regardless.

Since I wrote the last installment, I’ve traded my half of the 2 car garage for the 10x12 shed out back. I’ve got less room overall, but since I left the usual garage clutter behind and only have my woodworking tools to navigate around, it’s not that bad. The hard part was moving that workbench top by myself from the garage to the shed. A little ingenuity and a wheelbarrow came in handy.

With the top upside down on a folding table, I decided this would be the ideal time to cut a groove for the sliding deadman. This was a pretty long groove, so to save my hands and time, I decided against using a drill and mortising chisel and instead used a router. The router needed about four passes to complete the groove, and even then it balked a bit. It’s not a very powerful tool, and I probably should’ve done more research before buying it, but at the time I wasn’t planning on cutting a 1 inch deep groove in a solid piece of yellow pine.


The groove for the sliding deadman, running between the two front leg mortises.

You’ll notice in the picture above I have a few hand tools laying around. In routing the groove, I made a few errors, like not thoroughly clamping my guide down (no, my router doesn’t have a fence), which caused the bit to wander into the groove wall in several places. After setting the router aside, I used my mortising chisel and a few bevel edge chisels to clean up the sloppy router work, all the while cursing that thing under my breath. Besides being noisy, dusty, and ill-tempered, I thought I was going to lose my sliding deadman. In the end, with a little hand tool work the groove came out fine, although slightly wider than I had planned.

North meets South

Now it was time to get the top and the base together. The first order of business was to get the holes ready on the two faces of my top for the lag screws I was going to use to attach the base. I opted for lag screws only from the perspective that I wasn’t comfortable trying to use the drawboring method Chris used to attach his base and top. I’ll practice first on some scrap before trying it out on something I’m investing a lot of work in.

Using the lag screws, the first thing to do is drill out a sufficient “hole” to allow the hex heads on the bolts to sit slightly under the surface of the bench top face. Using a Forstner bit and a drill made for easy work.


Just enough depth to allow the hex heads to sit below the surface.

Next up, I needed to drill through the mortise walls and get them ready for the lag screws I intended on using.

Lag screw holes

And finally after doing this to each of the four mortises in the bench top, I dry fitted the top to the bottom, to check out the fit. Dry fitting these pieces together was probably the step I wanted to skip the most. The base was heavy and unwieldy


especially in a small shed, but I’m glad I did. A few minutes trimming the tenons were required to loosen the fit up a bit.

Next, I spread glue on all the tenons, and carefully aligned them with the mortises and pounded them home. I thought ahead a little bit and set the base on four sheets of wax paper, just slightly offset from the mortises in the top, so spreading the glue and moving the base into place was a much easier task than trying to lift it from the ground and align it while minimizing glue drips.

Driving the lag screws home was the final step, but I noticed my base and top weren’t completely square across all the shoulders. I ended up using a little bit of clamping pressure to make sure as much shoulder as possible was contacting the bench top without over-clamping and accidentally distorting the frame. My shoulders weren’t perfect, but since I was using heavy lag screws I wasn’t too concerned.

The completed assembly

Tightening up the four posts wasn’t nearly as rough using a drill. It helps to have a variable speed drill and a light touch on the trigger. Over-tightening might not harm something this stout, but at this stage, I’d hate to find out differently. Carefully, I tightened down the lag screws and finished up with a socket wrench.


The base and top finally joined together.

Now it was time to flip the bench on it’s new legs and see how it set. I was pretty surprised that it was fairly level. At least that means I followed the directions well enough.

Flattening the top with the jack plane.


The Flat Earth Society

Now it was time to flatten the top. I first used my jack plane at an angle to get the high spots out. First in one direction, then back across in the other. I then switched to my fore plane and repeated the same procedure. Side note: After my copy of “Workbenches: from Design and Theory to Construction and Use” came in the mail, I finally read that, I should’ve gone cross grain with the jack and the fore plane first, then at an angle. Live and learn, I guess.

After going across at an angle in both directions, I went with the grain (using both jack and fore plane) and then finished with a smoother plane. Use a pair of winding sticks as you go along. I used two inexpensive pieces of angle aluminum from the local home center to gauge the top as I went. Chris details out the methods in sequence in his articles and book, so follow that, and you’ll have a flat top in no time. You might want to skip the smoothing plane altogether. I wasn’t trying to be crazy about the smoothness of the top, I just wanted a reason to try out the smoother I’d picked up at a flea market earlier this year.

Hole number one of, well, like 20…

Dogs and the Holes Thereof

Next up, drilling the dog holes. I opted for the bit and brace approach, just because I had gotten some practice in with a brace in an earlier installment, and I was eager to try it again. After reading about this tool for some time, I was convinced it was a worthwhile investment to acquire a few (you always need a “few”, right?) and learn how to use them. It was well worth the effort. A brace drills so much cleaner with less chance of screw-ups than a power drill. No cord to get in the way, and it’s got plenty of torque without that nasty habit of twisting out of your hand on a deep cut.


I used a little trick I read about in Woodworking Magazine, that when using a brace and attempting to drill a nice perpendicular hole, use a combination square to help keep yourself straight. Not a bad trick. Not once did I feel like I was making a mess of things. After about 5 holes using this method, I had my balance and a good feel for keeping the brace level and straight, so I only occasionally checked the angle with the square.

I followed the advice of Mr. Schwarz on drilling. Once your bits’ tip breaks through, stop, and complete the operation from the other side of the hole. This will leave a much (much!) cleaner hole when it’s all said and done, as I found out when I forgot to do it the first couple of times.

The last hole for the top and the “thingie”.

There’s no doubt about it, you’ll get a workout using a brace to drill ¾ inch holes into a 3 and ½ inch top. My arm was certainly tired after the 10th one or so, but no pain, no gain, right?

I had to include this picture. This is the last hole in the top. My kids got a big kick out of the little “thingies” (their word, not mine) that drilling with the brace left behind. I’ve been instructed to not EVER throw them away.


The top gets two rows of dog holes, one set on the front half for bench dogs (mostly) and the other set on the back half to use with holdfasts. Well, obviously, bench dogs and holdfasts are pretty much interchangeable, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. In the plans, you’ll note there are a lot more holes on the front half than the back half.

You might be tempted to skip a few of the holes on the front half, but think about that twice. The idea for the numerous holes is to keep your end vice from having to travel a lot when locking a board in for planing. I’ve already found it worthwhile to stick with the plans on this aspect.

Lastly, don’t forget to drill out the holdfast holes for the legs.

Holdfast holes drilled out, in the front legs.

Both front legs get holes drilled into them for holdfasts. In the case of the right front leg, it gets three for working at various heights or with long and tall work pieces. The left front leg (not pictured) has the front vice so you’ll end up omitting the top hole.

Marking and cutting for the tail vice.


Chopping the Block

The next operation is to get the right end ready for the tail vice. The tail vice is a regular quick release vice normally found on the front of most workbenches. The idea, as explained in the plans, was to get away from the issue of the “typical sagging tail vice”. I’ve never experienced this before personally, after all this is my first real woodworking bench, but I’ve seen plenty of benches in the last few months that exhibit this behavior. I can see where using a standard quick release might be of benefit over time. The first thing I needed to do was to “let in” the vice so that it was even with the rest of the bench side. This was also explained in Chris’ article detailing the construction. In case you ever want to clamp a board flat against the side, you’ll want the vice to sit flush. Using a backsaw and a mortising chisel, you can waste away the edge pretty well. It’s not a fast operation (at least for me) by any means, but it works.

First, cut kerfs into the edge every quarter inch from the side. I got tired of bending down, and probably only cut about every half inch. It’s still a lot of cutting, regardless. It’s good sawing practice, though, as you want to be careful that your saw is at the same depth at the top and the bottom of the bench by the time you hit your line. I marked a line at the top and the bottom for this reason.

Wasting away the edge material.

It’s fairly simple to accomplish this, but it does take a bit of technique. I first started with a downward cut, making sure to stay at a 90 degree angle to the top and slight shallow of my line. I didn’t try and cut too deeply, maybe not more than a quarter inch. I followed the line I’d drawn out and worked my way across. Next, I took the chisel and went directly into the end grain at about the same depth, a quarter inch, essentially, cutting into the bench little by little popping off small pieces as you go.


Almost there. Start from the bottom at this point and work up toward the remaining wood.

Wash, rinse, repeat. This is tedious, but good practice in using hand tools. By the time I got this far into it, I was getting much faster and more precise with my chopping. I’d advise a fairly stout mortising chisel. The one I used is more so for smaller scale work, and simply took longer.

It’s probably a good thing to mention that as you get closer to the bottom, start your work over from the other side. If you don’t, you’ll risk breaking out the last inch or so and tearing your top out on the underside. Don’t ask me how I know this, but it’s true, and you’ll probably lose a nice sized chunk. Save it, because some glue and a small nail or two can fix it. This is another reason to start from the top and work down, at least you won’t harm the work surface if you do break through too aggressively.


A spacer block was needed for the end vice to fit properly.

Of Vice and Men

I was almost ready to mount the vice to the top at this point. Flip the bench upside down on some workhorses or a table to work comfortably in getting the vice mounted. You’ll need some kindly neighbors or stout family members for that part (that’s the “men” part I mentioned in this section’s title).

First thing you’ll probably notice, like I did, was the vice sits higher than the top by a good 3/8 of an inch or so. Using a plywood board as a spacer solved that problem. Chris’ article mentions it as well, so it must be a common occurrence. A couple of nails, some glue and we’re ready to start drilling the holes for the vice.


Marking out the layout holes for the vice.

The vice I picked was a similar model to the one Chris recommended. It’s a 10 ½ inch model from Lee Valley. It’s a heavy piece of iron from the Czech Republic, and well built. I imagine this thing will outlive me, and a few of my kids as well. I laid the vice on top of the bench, and marked out the holes. Easy enough. Some more brace action, and I was on my way to using the vice for the first time. Following the advice mentioned in the piece of paper that serves as a manual for it, I will attempt to never clamp my fingers in it.

Mounted and balanced.


Before final mounting of the vice, don’t forget to drill out enough space for the through bolts and washers to sit inside your bench top. A Forstner bit works well for this part. Just remember when initially drilling the holes with your brace, before you break through, stop, then use the Forstner to complete the operation from the other side.

Now it’s time to get the end vice chop and the face vice parts ready.

Face vice “half” glue up.

Face Time with the End and Face Vice

I used plenty of glue this time around. The wood has had plenty of time to stabilize, but it has been stored in an unheated shed. Thanks to a break in the weather, I ended up completing this step when it was fairly dry out and 60 degrees. It turned out this was no problem. The boards held together fine.


The face vice and end chop assembly. You can never have too many clamps, I heard once.

If you’re using your new bench to glue your pieces up, like I did, don’t forget to put down some wax paper first. You’ll have plenty of glue squeeze out and you probably don’t want to have to clean your top off at this point. The face vice, the end vice chop, as well as the two mounting blocks for the face vice bench screws are all thicker than the stock I started with, so have plenty of clamps on hand. Once everything was glued and assembled and clamped, I left it overnight to dry.

Cleaning up the edges with a smoother.


Now is a good time to try out that end vice. I used it to clamp my newly glued up pieces for a couple of passes with one of my smoothers. My fore plane probably would’ve worked faster, but I just finished putting a new edge on the smoother’s blade, and wanted to try it out. Actually having the vice mounted before I’d finished these pieces really helped.

Smoothing out the end vice chop.

Between the time this picture was taken and the previous one, I’d moved the bench (and my shop) from the unheated garden shed to a heated, but smaller spot, in the basement. With winter here, it was getting difficult to finish the project in that shed. So if you notice that the background in the photo’s have changed, well, that’s why.

Now, I was able to turn my attention back to the end vice chop and the face vice. Chris’ article shows nicely rounded edges on the two pieces. I decided to try and replicate that, and ended up having a friend with a band saw help me out. The ends aren’t as perfect as I’d hoped, but close enough. I ran the smoother a couple more times across all four sides again, just to get in some practice and clean up a bit.


Cleaning up the band sawn ends.

I used a wood file to clean up the ends on the end vice chop. Nothing too extensive, just some light brushing up. Both the end chop and the face vice were rough enough to require it. I also further defined the edge where the band saw had exited the work piece and squared it up as well.

Installed and ready for use.


Once the chop was cleaned up, it was time to install it. A couple of 1 ½ inch fine threaded wood screws attached through the vice plate itself (it already had holes) holds on the chop quite well.

Drilling for the bench screws

I needed to drill out the holes for the bench screws, and rather than try and hunt up a large boring bit that would fit my brace, I opted instead to use a power drill and a Forstner bit. That contraption you see above is a mini drill press add-on for a drill to help you keep the angle on your work piece. It’s not really that stable, you have to hang on to it fairly well, especially if you don’t have a lot of surface area for the attachment to sit squarely on. It’s better than trying it freehand, particularly if you have a long deep hole that needs to be straight. And besides, I still haven’t found that bit for my brace that measures 1 ½ inches across.

Drilling out for the bench screws

As you can see from the picture, there just happens to be enough base for the mini drill press to sit squarely on. Otherwise, I would’ve had to clamp some helper boards to the sides to keep it level.


Everything drilled out for the face vice assembly.

Installing the face vice

Once the face vice assembly is drilled out for the bench screws, now comes the tricky part. Lining everything up for installation. You might notice my bench screw mounting blocks are a little wider than noted in the plans, mostly because I forgot to have my friend with the band saw cut them down. In the end, if you’re thinking about seriously installing the sliding deadman, you’ll want to cut them to spec otherwise the right hand block will interfere with the deadman.

After you’ve drill out for your through bolts, nuts and washers, you’ll be ready to mount the screw blocks and the face vice. Getting the whole assembly lined up and in place was a challenge. It was kinda heavy. Chris mentioned mounting the bench screws and clamping the whole thing together, then putting it on the bench. It turned out this was probably the easiest way I could think of for lining everything up correctly.


Pretty close to finished. Now to get it all together.

The bench screws were a set of metal ones that Chris had mentioned you could use if you couldn’t find or afford the wooden ones. They came loaded up with a thick oil to prevent corrosion. A quick bath with mineral spirits removed most of the oil. Don’t forget to add a little light oil back to them (preferably one that won’t stain wood), now and again.

Putting the bench screws assembly on was a cinch. All I did was line up the components to the holes and screwed them down tight with a few 1 ½ wood fine threaded screws. The holes in the wood are slightly larger than the metal holes for the bench screws. They’re about 1 ¼. All I did was use a pencil and mark the metal through the holes to the other side of the vice and screw mounts to gauge if I was aligning everything correctly. A little measuring of my marks and pretty soon I found the correct position. If you’ve got chalk or something a little more noticeable, you might use that. Pencil marks were tough to see on the green colored metal.


Face Vice and mounting blocks clamped on.

With all of the hardware mounted, I screwed the blocks onto the face vice, and positioned the whole thing on the bench itself. Before drilling the holes, I had already measured the thickness of the top (twice!) to be sure and marked on the face vice where the mounting blocks would hit. This time my measurements were on the mark and it fit perfectly.

Bench screw blocks installed.


Notice my layout lines that extend across the face of the bench onto the top. This was how I could gauge where to drill the holes for the bolts. Drilling out from the bottom as stated in the article wasn’t that feasible for me. The stretcher was in my way preventing me from getting a good straight start. I could’ve used a smaller brace. Guess that’ll give me another reason to add to my collection. If you do drill out from the top, make sure you use the Forstner bit first, as you’ll want those bolt heads and washers counter sunk.

Face vice in place permanently.

Once the mounting blocks are in place, it’s a simple matter of screwing on the face vice. Notice my handle brackets don’t line up vertically or horizontally very well. I guess that’s just a feature I’ll have to live with, as I can’t figure out a way to loosen the brackets themselves. They seem to be held in place by a through pin.


Making something to hold on to.

Getting a Handle on it

Handles for the face vice didn’t come with the bench screws, so I visited the local home center for some 1 ¼ oak doweling. I couldn’t find just a rounded end, so I used a finial with the fanciness cut off the top. Once it was trimmed down and sanded a bit, it made a very nice end. Even came with it’s own screw mount for easy installation.


Handles installed.

You’ll notice in this picture my handle is a little long. I ended up cutting two 18 inch dowels, then removing another 4 inches from each. This still isn’t quite right as they overlap somewhat in the middle. I’ll eventually cut them down another couple of inches.


The bench, finished at last.

Finish

At long last the bench is finished. Well, almost. I still need to go over it with a coat or two of Danish Oil, install some leather on the end and face vice, and maybe clean up a few spots on it. All in all, it was a worthwhile effort, even if it did take me far longer than I originally anticipated.

No mention of this project would be complete without reminding the readers that without the articles and advice of Chris Schwarz, and in turn, Woodworking Magazine, and Popular Woodworking, I probably would’ve built something far less useful and spent far more money. The techniques, tips, and tricks from which this was all gleaned has been more helpful than anything I could’ve found elsewhere. If you’re serious about building a great workbench, I can’t recommend enough to buy “Workbenches: from Design and Theory to Construction and Use”, by Chris. If you want to plans for the Holtzapffel as well as some nice extras, then spend the few extra bucks and get the companion CD. It’s well worth it.

Hopefully, this article will encourage others to take on this project, and build themselves a great place to work. With a minimum of tools and talent (and a little effort), I managed to build something I can probably use for many years to come.

Now it’s time to make something for the house!

Dave Pearce February, 2008

building the holtzapffel workbench -...

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