For most people, the best first workbench is built from construction-grade softwood: kiln-dried CLS or C24 joists, ripped and glued face to face into a top about 75 to 100mm thick, on legs made from the same stock. A top roughly 1500 x 600mm suits most home workshops, at a height you set from your own body rather than a standard. The decision that matters most is the top. Its thickness, flatness and weight decide whether the bench works, and they decide what vice and holdfasts you can fit, so plan the top first and the base around it.
Check out these workbench plans: Workbench Build Plans (3rd party)
What a workbench actually needs
- Flat. Hand planing and assembly both depend on it, so choose timber and a design that stays put.
- Heavy. Mass stops the bench creeping when you plane or chop.
- Rigid. The base must not rack sideways. Thick legs, deep rails and tight joints matter more than fancy joinery.
- The right height. Too low and your back suffers. Too high and you can’t get your weight over a plane.
Setting the height
There is no single correct height. A common rule of thumb is to stand in your workshop shoes with your arms by your sides, flex your palms flat, and measure from the floor to the underside of your palm. That height suits mostly hand planing; add a couple of inches (about 50mm) for mixed work and joinery. Some teachers start taller, around 965mm (38 inches) for an average-height adult, arguing that a low bench strains the back. If you’re unsure, build a little tall. It is easy to shorten the legs and much harder to lengthen them.
The main approaches
| Approach | Typical top | Strengths | Trade-offs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Laminated softwood | CLS or C24 joists glued face to face, 75 to 100mm thick | Usually the cheapest solid top, easy to work, heavy enough | Softer surface dents, needs careful board selection and drying |
| Hardwood top | Beech or hard maple, 60 to 100mm thick | Hard, dense, long-lived, the traditional choice | Costs much more, heavier to handle, beech moves a lot with humidity |
| Sheet material top | Two or more layers of 18mm plywood or MDF, or a torsion box | Flat straight away, fast to build | Holdfasts and vices are harder to fit, MDF hates water and edge screws |
Laminated softwood
Construction softwood is kiln-dried, graded and long, which suits a bench. CLS (Canadian Lumber Standard) is planed timber with eased, rounded edges, commonly 38 x 63 or 38 x 89mm (the North American 2 x 3 and 2 x 4). Joists graded C24 come in thicker sections such as 47 x 100 or 47 x 150 sawn, and the higher grade usually means fewer and smaller knots. Either way, you rip off the rounded or rough edges, glue the strips face to face on edge, then flatten the top. A softwood top dents more easily than hardwood, but dents don’t stop it working and it can be re-flattened for years.
Hardwood tops
Beech has long been the European bench timber and hard maple the North American one. Both are hard and heavy, and both give a top that resists dents and looks good for decades. Beech is dense but moves a lot: the Wood Handbook puts American beech’s tangential shrinkage at 11.9 per cent from green to oven-dry, more than white oak, so it needs to be properly dried and given time to settle before you flatten it. A hardwood top costs a good deal more than softwood and is far heavier to glue up and move. A sensible middle path is a hardwood top on a softwood base.
Plywood, MDF and torsion boxes
Two or three layers of 18mm plywood glued and screwed together make a flat, stable top quickly. MDF is flatter and cheaper again, and makes a good replaceable surface layer over plywood, but it swells if it gets wet and holds screws poorly in its edges. A torsion box (a grid of ribs skinned top and bottom with sheet material) is very flat and stiff for its weight, which suits an assembly or outfeed table. Its lightness is the problem for hand work, and a thin skin is a poor place for holdfasts or a vice.
A sample cutting list
This is a simple, sturdy bench in laminated CLS: a top about 1500 x 580 x 80mm (16 strips of 38mm come to about 608mm wide before you plane the faces), four laminated legs, and rails at top and bottom. Lengths assume a finished height of around 900mm with an 80mm top, so the legs are 820mm. Change the leg length to suit your height.
| Part | Qty | Section (mm) | Cut length (mm) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top strips | 16 | 38 x 89 CLS | 1600 | Rip to about 38 x 82 to remove rounded edges, glue on edge, trim to 1500 |
| Leg pieces | 8 | 38 x 89 CLS | 850 | Glue in pairs to make four legs about 76 x 89, trim to 820 |
| Long rails | 4 | 38 x 89 CLS | 1250 | Two near the top, two near the floor |
| Short rails | 4 | 38 x 89 CLS | 500 | End frames, top and bottom |
| Shelf | 1 | 18mm plywood | about 1250 x 450 | Optional, sits on the lower rails and adds weight |
To turn a cutting list into an order, work from the stock lengths the yard sells. CLS is often sold in lengths such as 2.4, 3.0 and 4.8m, so ask the yard. A 3.0m length gives one top strip and one leg piece (2450mm) with a 550mm offcut, so 16 lengths cover the top and legs, and four of the offcuts give the short rails. Add two lengths for the four long rails (two per length), making 18, then allow roughly 15 to 20 per cent extra for boards you reject for knots, twist or splits. For this bench that means about 21 lengths of 3.0m. If you prefer thicker joist stock, 47 x 100 C24 ripped and laminated gives a top of similar thickness from fewer strips. For help writing it up, see how to specify timber for a quote.
Laminating a top from joists
Picking the boards
Construction timber is graded for strength, not for furniture, so if the yard lets you choose, look for:
- Straight boards. Sight down each one for bow, spring and twist. A little bow is fine across short strips. Twist is not.
- Small, tight knots. Avoid large knots on edges and loose or dead knots, which fall out or tear when planed.
- No pith. Boards with the centre of the tree running through them tend to cup and split. Skip them or rip the pith out.
- Grain on the top face. Where you can, arrange strips so the edge grain faces up.
Drying and acclimatising
Construction timber is dried for building, and it is often wetter than you want for furniture. Canadian kiln-dried (S-Dry) lumber, for example, only has to be at 19 per cent or less when it is planed. For joinery, the British Woodworking Federation says that where national requirements and end use are not available, moisture content should not exceed 13 per cent for heated buildings or 16 per cent for unheated ones. Forest Research guidance, quoting EN 942, gives 12 to 16 per cent for unheated rooms and 9 to 13 per cent for rooms heated to 12 to 21°C, so match the timber to where the bench will live. The BWF also notes that the UK’s equilibrium moisture content swings from about 8 per cent in July to about 20 per cent in November, and that timber moves about 1 per cent tangentially (across a flat-sawn face) for every 3 to 5 per cent change in moisture content.
So stack the timber flat on spacer sticks in the workshop and leave it for at least a couple of weeks before you rip it. A pin moisture meter tells you when readings have stopped falling. Rip the strips a little oversize, leave them a few more days to settle, then plane and glue. Glue the top in sections of four or five strips that fit your planer or that you can flatten by hand, then join the sections. Flatten the top only once the glue has fully cured, and expect to touch it up after the first heating season.
Vices, holdfasts and top thickness
Decide on your workholding before you fix the top thickness.
- Holdfasts. A holdfast grips by wedging in a hole as you strike it, so the top must be thick enough for the shaft to bind but not so thick it can’t. One maker of 1 inch holdfasts says theirs work in tops from 2 to 8 inches (about 50 to 200mm) thick, but holdfasts vary, so check the range for the one you buy. A laminated top of 75 to 100mm sits comfortably inside that range. A single 18mm sheet does not.
- Face vice. A metal vice bolts under the front edge, so check its mounting instructions against your top thickness and allow for a packing block.
- Leg vice. A wooden leg vice needs a thick front leg, so plan that leg wider or flush with the front edge of the top.
- Dog holes. Bench dogs and holdfasts need holes clear of the base rails, so mark rail positions before drilling.
Finishing the top
Leave the top bare or give it a thin coat or two of oil. It resists glue drips a little and is easy to renew after you re-flatten. Avoid film finishes such as varnish or polyurethane on the working surface. They make the top slippery and chip under mallets and clamps.
Build it: tutorials worth following
- Paul Sellers’ workbench: the introduction to a free video series in which a British maker builds a workbench from construction-grade softwood with hand tools, including laminating the top. His design has a recessed tool well.
- The $175 Workbench, Popular Woodworking: Christopher Schwarz’s build from home-centre softwood, with a laminated top and pegged mortise-and-tenon joints with bed bolts. Sizes are imperial.
- The Anarchist’s Workbench, Lost Art Press: a free book on a heavier bench from softwood, explaining the reasoning behind every part. Sizes are imperial and the bench is bigger than the sample above.
What to ask the merchant
- What is the moisture content? Construction stock can be well above furniture levels. Ask if they have a meter reading.
- Can customers pick through the stack? Choosing your own boards saves waste.
- What grade is it? C24 usually has fewer and smaller knots than C16.
- What are the actual finished sizes? CLS and planed timber are a few mm under the nominal size.
- What lengths do you stock? Plan your cutting list around them to reduce offcuts.
- Do you have beech or maple in thick sections? For a hardwood top, ask for kiln-dried boards and their thickness after planing.
Sources
- British Woodworking Federation, Durability (13 and 16 per cent joinery limits for heated and unheated buildings, UK equilibrium moisture content range, tangential movement per change in moisture content)
- Forestry Commission, Making the Grade (Forest Research) (EN 942 moisture targets for unheated and heated interiors)
- The English Woodworker, Workbench height (palm-height rule of thumb, adding height for mixed work)
- Paul Sellers, The question of bench heights (case for a taller bench, 38 inches for an average-height adult)
- Lost Art Press, Crucible iron holdfast (maker’s top thickness range of 2 to 8 inches)
- Forest Products Laboratory, Wood Handbook (2021), Chapter 4 (American beech tangential shrinkage 11.9 per cent, white oak 10.5 per cent)
- Canadian Wood Council, Lumber (38 x 64 and 38 x 89mm actual sizes for nominal 2 x 3 and 2 x 4, S-Dry at 19 per cent or less)