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To celebrate International Workbench Day, I have a great photo (above) and some links to some interesting workbenches across the Atlantic.
These links and photos were sent to me by Kim-Erik H�¤ggblom in Finland, and I spent about an hour last night at these sites browsing through the photos (no luck with the words, however. My Finnish is about as good as my baguettes these days).
The photo is from the Filton airplane company and shows a workbench that could be described as the “Chunnel” bench. It has a top as thick as a French workbench but the aprons of an English bench. Note that this is one case in which I can see the value of a tool tray. If you need to wedge your propeller in place to drawknife it, then a center tool well is probably a good place to do it.
Now let’s take a look at a bench from Marttila. Click here to take a look. For those of you who like a big twin-screw vise, this is probably its ultimate iteration. The whole thing is a twin-screw. The bench sort of reminds me of Drew Langsner’s chairmaking bench, which features a large twin-screw on the front and is taller than your average bench.
The base is also interesting. I’ve used benches with the Lee Valley cast base and like them quite a lot. Grizzly sells a bolt-together workbench base that has always intrigued me as well. These benches are in the company’s warehouse and are quite sturdy. And if you are a bench traditionalist, you can stop squirming now. Other 19th-century books I have (Demming is one, I believe) show a workbench with a metal base that was highly recommended.
However, that bench is just a warm-up for the really unusual benches from Kuokkala.
If you like tail vises (I mean really like them) then the 4-oppilaan hÃ?¶ylÃ?¤penkki is the bench for you. It features four tail vises arranged around a square benchtop. This would be great for a school that specializes in teaching planing the faces of boards. You’ll have to go to another school to learn how to plane edges, however.
Don’t like perfect squares? Try the Kuokkala Tec-Idea Ã?ÂhÃ?¶ylÃ?¤penkki. Two people can dovetail and plane at the same time on this six-sided bench.
There are lots of woodworking lift devices out there. I haven’t seen the LisÃ?¤tarvikkeet hÃ?¶ylÃ?¤penkkeihin. It looks like a hydraulic jack lifts or lowers the top. Then you lock the legs with some friction pads. I’ll bet it works (as long as those friction pads are sturdy).
I always find interesting ideas on these international sites. The so-called “Euro-bench” isn’t as monolithic or generic as U.S. catalogs suggest.
– Christopher Schwarz
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