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To celebrate International Workbench Day, I have a great photo (above) and some links to some interesting workbenches across the Atlantic.
These links and photos were sent to me by Kim-Erik H�¤ggblom in Finland, and I spent about an hour last night at these sites browsing through the photos (no luck with the words, however. My Finnish is about as good as my baguettes these days).
The photo is from the Filton airplane company and shows a workbench that could be described as the “Chunnel” bench. It has a top as thick as a French workbench but the aprons of an English bench. Note that this is one case in which I can see the value of a tool tray. If you need to wedge your propeller in place to drawknife it, then a center tool well is probably a good place to do it.
Now let’s take a look at a bench from Marttila. Click here to take a look. For those of you who like a big twin-screw vise, this is probably its ultimate iteration. The whole thing is a twin-screw. The bench sort of reminds me of Drew Langsner’s chairmaking bench, which features a large twin-screw on the front and is taller than your average bench.
The base is also interesting. I’ve used benches with the Lee Valley cast base and like them quite a lot. Grizzly sells a bolt-together workbench base that has always intrigued me as well. These benches are in the company’s warehouse and are quite sturdy. And if you are a bench traditionalist, you can stop squirming now. Other 19th-century books I have (Demming is one, I believe) show a workbench with a metal base that was highly recommended.
However, that bench is just a warm-up for the really unusual benches from Kuokkala.
If you like tail vises (I mean really like them) then the 4-oppilaan hÃ?¶ylÃ?¤penkki is the bench for you. It features four tail vises arranged around a square benchtop. This would be great for a school that specializes in teaching planing the faces of boards. You’ll have to go to another school to learn how to plane edges, however.
Don’t like perfect squares? Try the Kuokkala Tec-Idea Ã?ÂhÃ?¶ylÃ?¤penkki. Two people can dovetail and plane at the same time on this six-sided bench.
There are lots of woodworking lift devices out there. I haven’t seen the LisÃ?¤tarvikkeet hÃ?¶ylÃ?¤penkkeihin. It looks like a hydraulic jack lifts or lowers the top. Then you lock the legs with some friction pads. I’ll bet it works (as long as those friction pads are sturdy).
I always find interesting ideas on these international sites. The so-called “Euro-bench” isn’t as monolithic or generic as U.S. catalogs suggest.
– Christopher Schwarz
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Hmmm. I was going to make a comment that a Google search on "International Workbench Day" returns a link to this blog post, and nothing else, but then Chris would have been able to say, "Made you look!"
So I won’t.
I have a machine shop photo from the same time period and everyone from the foreman down to the shop boy is wearing a shirt, tie, and shopcoat.
On the last link scroll down to the bottom. I really like the idea of the swivel out stool. I could see a kind of folding gateleg stool of some kind attached to my bench. This would be especially helpful if I did a lot of detail work, carving etc…
A folding, gate-leg sawing bench integrated into the main workbench?
Now I want to see Chris’s sketchup designs for the different configurations of the six-sided bench. How could you design the legs so as to make sure you still had a flat plane for each side? An interesting design challenge.
AAAndrew
International Workbench Day?!? I heard last week for any given day/week/month, there is something to celebrate, but really! Personally, I’m for "National Ice Cream Month."
Daddy has a workbench problem, dear.
Chris, if you need some advice on baguettes, drop me a line.
I would love to be able to help, considering all the help I’ve received from your writings.
Ben
Hmm, wear a tie and white shirt to a carpentry shop job? Methinks the shop supervisor stepped in for the photo op. Now that I think about it, times haven’t changed that much.
That there is a "gert Brissle bench my deer, if thee cassn’t tell a froggie bench frum a Brissle bench then thee got no right righting about workbenches.
PS: Start wearing a tie and jacket and your joints will all start to tighten-up
Mike, Formerly from Brissle, wherin resides Filton
The "Tec-Idea kolmelle" is really cool!
6th one down on the perfect squares link.