Workbench

One of my favorite magazines is the "Family Handyman". Being relatively new to home improvement, and owning a home which needs lots of improvement, the articles and style of the magazine is a terrific fit for where I am right now. In the three years of dedicated reading, I have seen very little content repetition.

I am now making my garage an acceptable workshop where we can not only park cars but also produce the furniture that I want to build for the house. Step 1 of this process was building a good "no-bounce" workbench.

Back in September of 2004 there was a terrific article on just such a workbench, which I had dog-eared for just this occaision:



But, being me, I swore I could do a little better. Notice all that wasted space between the two boards labelled "B"? Also, the workbench, as shown, was only 5' long and, clearly, I needed 6'. 8) After a little sweat and about $70, I had created the following:





Please pardon the messy views of my garage -- it remains a work in progress. Is this the greatest workbench ever? Probably not. But it is very sturdy and flat enough for the projects I am using. And, frankly, at $70 it is close enough to workbenches that cost 25x as much. Really. Go look at the Ulmia Workbench:



It is a nicer workbench, it comes with a vice attached. It is not worth, to me, the $1799.00 they are asking for it when I can build something as good (for me) for the price of shipping!