Mark,

You wanna hear a horror story about building a workbench? Long ago and far away,
I was a 20-something-year-old Naval officer stationed in Charleston, SC. I read
an article in Southern Living or Sunset Magazine about building a couch from
4x4's and rope. I went to the local Borg and bought some Southern Yellow Pine
(SYP) 4x4's, not realizing that they were sopping wet, or, if they were, what
the consequences of that might be. The plan included drilling 1" holes for
threading rope through the frame to support cushions. My tools included a hand
saw, a Skil saw, a brace and bit, a Stanley #4 plane Made in the 1970's, and
some saw horses I had built. About halfway through the project, the 4x4's
started to bow and twist. I got mad and decided to go with Plan B. Plan B was to
rip the 4x4's into 2x4's and build a workbench. I used the Skil saw to do the
ripping, two passes each. A lot of the resulting 2x4's had 1" holes bored in
them, either in thickness or transversly.

I built the bench base by nailing together 2x4's using 2" finishing nails,
including the top and bottom stretchers (short and long stretchers, top and
bottom). Dimensions are 2 feet wide by 4 feet long by about 34" high. For the
top I cut a bunch of 2x4's into 2-foot lengths and nailed them transversely to
the long top stretchers. That makes the top about 1.5" thick in most places.

No part of that bench is square or plumb or level. It wobbles when I tried to
plane anything. I can't plane the top flat because of the nails. As the wood
dried, gaps appeared between the boards on the top (inevitable because of the
way I oriented the grain of the top boards). There were 1" holes in random
places (which was great for losing small pieces of hardware). No glue was used.


Some 39 years later, that bench is still in use. It has survived 5 moves (2 of
which were across an ocean). I've added a few braces and a couple of vises and
plugged the holes in the top over the years, so it isn't quite as rickety as it
once was, but it's still rickety. And I still love it. It's my "dirty" bench. If
I spill oil on it, no problem. If I pound on it, no problem. That SYP is nearly
as hard as a rock. If my chisel slips into the bench surface, no problem. If the
black swarf from sharpening with my oilstones gets on it, no problem. I actually
find the gaps between the top boards useful when I need to cut sandpaper with a
utility knife (when I can find the bench's top). Ed Minch has seen this bench in
person and can testify to its faults.
So, Mark, don't despair. Just because your new bench top doesn't look pretty
doesn't mean that it can't be useful. I learned a lot from building my first
workbench. So will you.

I've been intending to build a new, more proper bench for quite some time now. I
actually started building it only 7 years ago, and it is at last nearing
completion. Stay tuned for a report after it is finally finished, which will be
Real Soon Now (measured of course in Galoot Time).

Chuck Taylor
north of Seattle