Future Enhancements

My shop is in a relatively large one car garage and shares space with large power tools, several bikes and the usual stored household items. So, shop workspace and storage is a very big issue for me. My bench was planned from the beginning to house a cabinet of drawers below the top to sit on the lower stretchers.To see what the cabinet looks like, click the details section of this site.

On the right side of the bench where there's the large overhang for the end vise, I plan on building a full extension shallow drawer attached to the bottom side of the top, that opens to the right to house my chisels. Like I said, I have a small shop I need every bit of storage I can get.

And as to the dilemma I had regarding whether to build a modern bench with lots of round dogs or a traditional bench, I have found a solution. Most of what attracted me to the modern style had to do specifically with clamping for routing. I'm going to be building a special assembly table to replace my present "Workmate with a piece of plywood on top" version. It'll be about 24" x 40", on wheels so I can use it near my bench or table saw, and will adjust its top from 34 1/4" bench and saw height to 45". Why so high? Well, though the height of my bench works for routing, there are many, many times I wish I could have the work higher to see what's going on. I think using a router closer to a chest height is better in some cases. The top will be 1 3/4" thick with a grid of 3/4" dog holes spaced about 4" apart. This should be make a nice assembly, gluing and clamping platform will be great during routing as I can use various hold downs and those nifty Wonder Dogs that Veritas makes. The base will be some kind of cabinet or rack to house my smaller clamps. Haven't figured that one out yet.

And I want to build one of Jeff Miller's Bench Top Benches as shown in the April 2005 issue of Fine Woodworking Magazine.

I built a portable bench slave you can see on the bottom of my details page. Just like Frank's shown in the Workbench Book. And, like his bench, I've already added flip up stops made out of some Bubinga scraps, for bracing when handsawing. I made them work both ways, for both push and pull saws.