Roubo Bench

A good workbench is probably the most fundamental tool for any shop. It serves as a support for cutting, planing and sanding. It is also perfectly flat which is ideal for building and referencing off of. I don't have a quality bench, since the majority of my woodworking up until this point has been power tool based. Since I am now starting to develop my hand tool skills, this has become a major need in the shop. I have been reading and researching about how I want to build my bench and what options it would have for the last few years. I was pretty sure I wanted a really intricate bench with tail vises and a huge bench vise in the beginning, until I started researching the actual history of the workbench and how it has evolved over the last 200 years or so. A French woodworker from the late 1700's designed what many consider to be the first true woodworking bench. Its basic design was fairly straight forward and simple, consisting of a large thick top and legs with no vises at all. It worked mainly by using a couple of hold fasts, a dead man (curved board below the bench top in the above photo) and a crochet (curved board on the left side of the top) to hold and clamp wood down. I like the simplicity of the design. It makes sense to me that my first bench should be simple and straightforward, since I don't know yet what i may actually need out of a bench beyond the basics.

This will be my first bench that I build. I will build one that is pretty similar to the above photo except with out that large vertical vise on the left side. The only limitation I really have is the quality of the currently manufactured hold fasts. They are terrible for the most part made of cast iron that is not as flexible as steel. I did discover 2 blacksmiths (one in Alaska and one in Kentucky) that still make high quality ones from scratch. So when the time comes to build the bench I will order 2 pair and design the bench to work with these. Once this project is completed, my education in hand tools will really begin.