From Barn to Bench: Making a Traditional Woodworking Bench from Barnwood - Mark Gezella

Review by Mark Gezella – October 2003

Surprise! You thought this was a book, didn't you?! Since I'm scheduled to make a presentation this month, I thought I'd take some liberties with the column and describe some sources of bench building I've referenced over the years. This month's newsletter column title is not about a specific book, but a collection of well-known publications. I hope you don't find this too presumptuous of me...

I've read many books and articles over the years pertaining to building a variety of woodworking benches. What I've listed here are those that influenced my decision on what to build and how to go about constructing it.

The New Yankee Workshop by Norm Abram - This is the book from the first season of shows. I saw Norm build a workbench on PBS back in 1989, and bought the book at the end of the season. It was really my first inkling towards actually trying to build something from scratch. As you might note from the timeline (1989 through the turn of the century), I pondered building a bench for a number of years before I ever set blade to wood!

Norm's bench is a simplified version, made from 2x's and masonite, but the design is based on his own professional bench and shares similar features. It's a good, economical, unintimidating design. Besides, it's Normie's bench! He's my idol!!

Making Workbenches by Sam Allen - I bought this book sometime after seeing the "Normie" version. I just came
across it on a sale rack at the bookstore. It has a great deal of pictures and describes bench-making in great detail. Again, I didn't feel too intimidated when I read it.

There is also a web-site that lists a description of the book, all chapters within and the index. You can find it at:
www.samallen.com/store/wbinfo.html

The Workbench Book by Scott Landis - This is one of a trio of compendiums that focus on a critical aspect of the
workshop. There's another book about workshops (Landis) and a third on toolboxes (Jim Tolpin). The workbench book covers everything you would want to know about benches; history, designs, how-to, etc. It includes all types of
benches, from traditional cabinetmakers benches to shaker designs to modern fold-down-and-stow-away types. Mr. Landis has traveled far and wide to photograph many benches and the woodworkers who own them, and it certainly
shows.

The book also contains some quasi-interviews with individuals familiar to most woodworkers (at least by name); Toshio Odate, Frank Klausz, Tage Frid, etc. It also provides complete plans for several benches in the appendices and is a great reference from the folks at Taunton.

Woodsmith Magazine - I'm sure your all familiar with this publication, especially since we have the
magazines in our library! It's a great resource for furniture building, and the publishers had presence of mind to include some very good plans for tools to outfit a shop as well.

Issue #50 (April '87) provides plans for a beautiful bench, built along traditional cabinetmaking lines. The issue dates to the "manila-yellow" vintage of Woodsmith, but it's still appealing. Their illustrations have come a long
way since then.

ShopNotes Magazine - This echoes what I stated for the Woodsmith magazine. ShopNotes is a companion
to the Woodsmith volumes, but these focus on the shop environment and tools to outfit a shop.

Several benches are presented in different issues. Issue #7 (Jan. '93) has plans for a straight-forward bench, and Issue #65 (Sept. '02) contains plans for a more elaborate bench. In fact, Issue #65 devotes the entire magazine to the
bench. It's a beautiful red oak twin-vice version, with cutting diagrams available through their website at: http://www.shopnotes.com/

I noticed there is some overlap between the two publications; some issues of ShopNotes contain projects presented in earlier issues of Woodsmith. Hear the "cha-ching" of the cash-register?! They knew what they were doing!! Oh well, I guess you can't beat a good thing, even if you pay for it twice, eh?

Fine Woodworking Magazine - I doubt there's much I can tell you about F.W. that you don't already know. I
found many articles/pictures about benches in these issues over the years. However, this was one publication that I did find intimidating. My skill sets are not at a level comparable to those I came across in the articles, so I deferred
plans from this magazine to perhaps sometime down the road.

Building a Traditional Workbench by Keith S. Rucker - This is an incredible website I came across while surfing the web. The guy built his bench from scratch and chronicled the whole thing. It's compiled into a neat Adobe (.pdf) file that you can download if you like. It also contains some links to other sites about bench-building. I found it fascinating, but it puts mine to shame! His site address is: http://pages.friendlycity.net/~krucker/Bench/index.htm

"The Workbench Book" and most of the magazines in this column are available for checkout in the Guild library. I hope you can take advantage of some of these if you are, or ever consider building your own workbench. Enjoy!