I built the tandem wherry last year using a 2' x 8" sheet of plywood over a couple of sawhorses for a workbench in the garage. Seeing as I can't justify building a dedicated boat shop at this time, I think will have to make do with the garage for the time being. Maybe if there's a build #3 I'll find a dedicated workshop with lots of room.
However, I can definitely improve on last year's workbench. I shopped around online for woodworking benches, and found all kinds of options...most of them much more than what I wanted to pay for a solid work area. I figured that my woodworking skills would only improve if I could build my own bench.
A little more online research turned up a design called the "Kirby" bench. This is a fairly simple, straight-forward kind of bench. Not too many doodads or specialized work areas. It also looked like something I could make with materials from my local Hope Depot.
Overall it's 84" long, by 30" wide and I think 33" high (?). I put it on industrial strength locking casters, so I could move it around easily in my limited space. The top began as 3" rock maple planks laminated together with epoxy. I hand-planed it down to something like 2.75" inches. It's not perfectly flat (yet) but it will serve my purposes. The trestle is 3.5" cedar legs and cross-ties, hand mortised and tenoned, and bolted together with 3/8" lag bolts. I cut a wood stop into the top and bolted it to the leg, and I drilled 3/4" dog holes across the surface for any large-scale clamping I may have to do. I added a Jorgensen 10" front vise, and built a Veritas twin-screw end-vise (wow...that only took me a week to make!). It's finished with Tung oil to help seal the maple against spills, paint, glue, etc.
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Twin-screw end vise.
Screws can work in tandem for parallel clamping, or independently for skewed clamping. |
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