The Workbench Design Book: The Art & Philosophy of Building Better Benches

This book is very thorough.

This book contains a variety of benches that can be constructed to meet the needs of the user. The photos are black and white but very clear. Be advised that these benches could be expensive and complex to build.

Schwarz provides detailed analyses of the features needed for a good workbench, and evaluates a wide range of designs and how well they meet those goals.This allows the reader to evaluate their particular needs; identify the features critical them; and assess design options to best meet them.This volume is a companion to his From Design & Theory to Construction & Use book, focusing more on practical examples than that more theoretical volume.The set of designs included covers a wider range of designs and options which complement the couple included in his From Design & Theory... book. Between the two, they cover most popular options.The designs included could be built as-is, but to best meet your needs, you will likely mix and match features among the various types.The only flaw I find, is that Chris concludes in many cases that the best choice is heavier, thicker wood assembled with more precise joinery, rather than taking more advantage of structural design approaches, like cross bracing - but I acknowledge that he's built and used benches a lot more that I.

The information is very well presented with lots of photos and illustrations. However, I have only scanned the book and have read a few sections. I also have “Workbenches” by The same author. The quality of “Workbenches” is much better. By “quality” I am referring to the paper used and the crispness of the photos and illustrations. “The Workbench Design Book” is printed on lower quality paper and the photos and illustrations look faded and have lines that look, as others have pointed out, like they were printed on a low quality printer low on ink. Both books are printed by the same publisher so I don’t understand why the quality is so different between books. Nonetheless, the information is top notch and the steps are thoroughly explained and I believe it to be a very valuable book for anyone who wants to build their own workbench.

This book is a great read for anyone looking at building a proper hand tool work bench, beware though that the Kindle version has not been optimized at all. Fractions appear in the format 11.2 (i.e. 1 1/2) throughout the book, plus there are line end hyphenations from the print version scattered randomly throughout. Worst of all, the pictures are all very low quality, and I when I say low quality I mean that no amount of of zooming in is going to make them readable.All in all, considering the price of the kindle version isn’t much less than the print version I’d say grab the printed book instead.

Overall great information. This book is jam packed with information, history, and goes into great detail on how to build many of the benches in the book. I personally enjoy the author's style, but it might not be for everyone. The book goes into many different styles of benches and the pros and cons of the different styles. He also gives good information to keep in mind when designing your own bench.I took away one star due to printing issues. Some pages (not all) have their margins cut off (text is missing about 2-3 inches in), making it very hard to read. One is able to mostly figure out what is being said, but it is frustrating to have such poor quality. I hope the publisher fixes the problem in future runs. I have attached pictures showing the text being cut off.Overall I would recommend the book to anyone interested in building their own workbench.

I recently received a couple of instructional books. Without a doubt this was the last one that I picked up. The printing was bland, the paper was of moderate quality (at best) and the images are all in black and white. From all outward appearances, I thought that I’d purchased a dud. You know the old saying, “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”. In my experiences, this was never more true.After finishing those other high-gloss, academically tedious books, I was bored senseless and reluctant to begin reading. I’m happy to report though, this was the most well-written, engaging and informative book in the stack. Schwarz has a “just the facts, mam” style peppered with honest self-criticism that almost demands your trust. His narrative is from the heart and with the kind of experience that doesn’t impose itself, but rather asks you to take your own situations into account. He’s funny too, and I appreciate a bit of off-topic humor to make a point.The benches included in the plans try to accommodate all situations: budget, time, flexibility, etc. each chapter has an evaluation of his take on the plans as well. It’s everything that I was looking for and more. To be completely transparent, I’ve not yet started any of the plans but I’m looking forward to doing so. I really enjoyed the read - it was like having a conversation with an experienced friend.

語学力が有ってもこの本は日本在住の人には2分の1位の効果しか望めません。もしも、この本の設計づ図を模倣し制作するには、肝心の重要部品を輸入しなければならない。インターネット通販でも利用してUSA より購入しなければ日本では購入できない物も有ります。全てを手作りをする人を除き★3ッ。ただし内容は充実しています、自作派には良き参考書間違いなし。

I bought this book having read parts of Christopher Schwarz's other popular book "Workbenches: From Design and Theory to Construction and Use"The reason I decided to buy this book is that I really enjoy Chris's ethos on woodworking especially how he champions hand tool use whenever possible. This book departs from the former as it looks at a whole host of different benches, rather than just two, including those for specific operations such as a power tool bench.It contains a lot of similar ideas to his previous book, and actually develops further the guidelines to building an ideal bench. Each bench that is contained in this book is critiqued (usually using the aforementioned guidelines) to give you an idea of the advantages and disadvantages.The best way to approach the ideas laid out in this book is with the knowledge of what kind of woodworker you are. You may find like me that no particular bench in this book is the one you want to build. The author himself encourages the reader not to replicate his designs but to invent their own using the inspiration of the book coupled with an idea of the tasks they will need to use their bench for.This book also helped me to realise that one of the benches I currently use could be much more workable, there is a brilliant section on improving existing benches and also a look at some of the most recent developments in workholding.If like me you are contstantly chasing the perfect design for the ultimate bench it is important to realise that this is an exercise in futility as what you learn by building a bench, especially by hand seems to automatically instill and inspire new and better ideas for your next. This book helped me skip parts of that process by elminating some ideas I wanted to try but also gave me the problem of about 15 new ones I want to implement.I would recommend this book to those looking to build their own first bench, and also to those who are undertaking this task for the umpteenth time.

Excellent reference work, but enough details to build a number of variations/types - recommended read before making any decisions on making a woodworking bench, as most considerations are presented in an unbiased way. Most everyone needs something to suit their work, toolset, body size etc and very good coverage. Only controversial thing is bench height - good arguments in this book, but sometimes advice from a 50 year woodworker might be more practical than pure stats.

Not as good as his other book on Workbenches, which is a refinement of the ideas in this one, I still enjoyed looking through this. There's a good plan for a power-tools workbench which is surprising if you know Schwarz, who is a self professed Neanderthal (aka hand-tools advocate). The pictures, typesetting and diagrams aren't as good in this one either. But if you enjoy Schwarz's writing, it's still worth reading this.

The book itself is a good read but the quality of the pictures is very poor in all honesty it like someone photocopied the book from a original and sent it to me its that bad if it wasn't for that it would have got at least 4 star's