First I want to say thank you for your help in my past questions. I am looking to build a workbench and wanted to get any feedback on what I should include. Minimum size, optimum height, etc. I have already found a good source for granite. The owner of a local counter top place said he has two dumpsters of scrap leave his shop each week. I am free to take what I want. I also have a local metal shop that said he could get me a 3/8” (9.5mm) or 1/2” (12.7mm) thick piece of sheet metal for the bench top. That would be thick enough not to flex and allow me to glue, stain, hammer and skive. Then have a cutting board for work that I need to protect my tool edge. I look forward to hearing everyones feedback.
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Hello,
I would personally advise a standing bench. When I work while sitting, I find that I am way less energetic and work slower. When I switched to a standing desk, I am outputting way more and am full of energy.
Think about it this way: You need to grab a tool. While sitting, you need to push the chair out from behind you, stand up, walk, grab the tool and then do the process in reverse. When you are standing, a quick step or two takes you to the tool and back to the bench. It helps a lot in keeping your focus.
Also, the advantage of a standing desk is that you can use the space underneath it to store your hides (or anything else).
A standing desk (if put in the middle of a room) also allows you to walk around it and work on a piece from different sides (very usefull for big projects).
For the height of the desk, stand up, bend your elbows 90 degrees so that your forearm is paralell to the ground and measure the distance from the ground to your elbow: that is how hight the bench top should be. It will allow you to work without bending your back.
Regarding the top, I have an 20mm (ish, maybe 22 ) thich MDF board on top. I still use a huge cutting mat on top of it, but the MDF board means that if my knife slips or my irons fall on my table by mistake, the MDF is soft enough that it will not nick them. Try and drop your skiving knife on a steel top and you will definetly chip it.
What i am investing in next tho is a smaller desk with a granit top. It will become my gluing/skiving station, but that will be in the future.
In this case bigger is better, your bench can never be too big. Ideally you want a bench to work at and a table that you can use to lay out hides and cut them on, but you have to work with the space you have. Height is always tricky, years ago while doing rehab after surgery I was told that standing height benches should be elbow height, but I think waist height is a good start. Make the bench a comfortable height to work at standing and get a height adjustable stool rather than a chair. Also, make sure that you can get your knees under the bench when sitting otherwise you will be constantly leaning forward. I would suggest 600mm (2 feet) wide and as long as you can fit, you need room to work plus room for your slab of granite and you don't want to have to move it around. Your granite slab can never be too big either. If you don't have room for a table and your work area is not inside your house, you may be able to build a table that connects to the wall and folds up out of the way when not in use, there's plenty of plans around the net for these. I hope this is some help. Cheers
Hi, I would probably stay away from a steel benchtop unless you are going to put a wooden layer on top of it. I doubt you will be doing any leatherwork that would need you to have a steel top and you would need to be certain to have every edge and corner radiused and smooth so it didn't mark your leather.