Traditionally a workbench has to do a few things very well, it has to be able to hold your wood so you can easily work on the face, the side and the end. It should also be solid and not move and be of sufficient height to allow you to work comfortably.
Then along came the Festool MFT that turned traditional thinking on its head, a standard height of 900mm, full of holes, and wobbly as a jelly. BUT it redefined how power tool users though about the bench. The Paulk bench followed and quickly YouTube and the market is full of similar benches all flying in the face of traditional thinking.
But, if you are a hand tool worker – then modern thinking simply doesn’t work and if your are limited in space then the ability to have both is out of your reach. And lets be honest – that is most of us..
So this bench is designed from the ground up to bring all the benefits of the traditional bench, include the speed and precision of the modern bench AND will cost you less to build than the price of a single MFT!
Welcome to the Woodgrafter Workbench
In this course we will;
- Look at the key principles of bench design
- Discuss material selection and bust some common myths
- Examine the stock
- Rough cut the stock ready for milling
- Mill up the stock form the laminated top, demonstrating both hand tools and power tool techniques
- Laminate and then flatten the top
- Make the MFT inserts using a simple template (no not the ParfGuide system)
- Build the base using mortice and tenon joinery (no domino) again demonstrating both power and hand techniques
- Assemble the frame
- Build and fit the vice
- Add some BenchDogs gear
- Put it through the paces
- As a bonus I will add some lesson post-course that walks through the Fusion 360 design process
This is going to be an epic build, AND we will assume you don’t have a bench to work from whilst building the bench – just to add an extra bit of fun.