Nicholson Bench, How Does It Work?

When I started out I had a laundry list of things I wanted this bench to do. It does not disappoint! The wooden vise works well and switches easily from left to right by unscrewing the screw and screwing it in to the other side. The bench is indeed stout and solid to work on and it is still not to heavy to lift into the van. The total cost was less than $150 so it was inexpensive and it looks like the picture! When Dean and I were first discussing the design we talked about gluing up the top and designing for wood movement. I decided to not glue the top planks together. Nicholson's bench had a loose board on the off side with a locker built underneath and there must have been a crack between two pieces.After giving it further thought we decided this crack would be useful as a place to put stops for transverse planing so we decided to glue the outside edges and leave the center to move a bit. We left a 1/2 inch crack up the middle to drop stops in for tranverse planing or a saw stop at the end of the bench. It all works! I think this is a fantastic entry level bench which will give many years of dependable service. I believe a similar bench could be built in 2 or 3 days using a handsaw, brace and 3/4 inch bit, chisels and mallet, a jointer plane and square. We left off a tail vise because with the planing stops it isn't necessary. For those of you that want a tail vise I have in the works a wagon/tail vise that is all wood, easy to build, and works as a tail vise and a wagon vise. I will be trying to get that done and posted soon! There are several prior postings about building the bench, just hit the blog tab at the top of the page.