Our September 2014 Workbench of the Month comes to us from a dynamic duo Father and Son, Gary and Jonathon H. from Kansas City, Missouri. This French Roubo style bench pairs a Lake Erie wooden leg vise along with a Benchcrafted criss-cross and tail vise. They don’t call Missouri the Show-Me state for nothing as this fine pair of woodworkers show us all how it’s done. Enjoy!
Made out of White Ash from local supplier.
21 inches Wide, 32.5 inches high, 7 foot 4 inches long, solid 5 inch thick top.
Finish is Danish Oil with the Leg Vise Chop and Board Jack stained lightly.
Made a trip to Atlanta GA and visited Highland Woodworking over Spring Break in March. Couldn’t leave without picking up a criss-cross vise support. It works so nice with the Wooden Screw. (The other vise is a wagon vise on the right side from Benchcrafted)
This was a project for Dad (53) and Son (15). It took us from Thanksgiving, November 28, 2013 to Memorial Day weekend May 26, 2014. A challenge for us, we had a lot of fun and learned a lot from the experience. Plus we collected a few more tools during the project.
The Board Jack (sliding deadman) is from a symbol we use to brand our woodworking projects. We like to make Martial Arts practice weapons and display cases and stands for them. We used Power Tools for years but started wanting to use more hand tools. We realized we needed a way to hold the boards to work on them with hand tools, so we started thinking about a workbench.
At the beginning of our research into building workbenches, we noticed the front cover of Popular Woodworking, August 2010 #184. (See Burly French Workbench, Christopher Schwarz). That’s when we decided we had to have a bench with the coolest Wooden Screw Leg Vise on it in the World! Lake Erie has the best. We inlaid the beautiful antique brass garter in the golden Ash Chop and then made sure the screws were all turned the same way. We love the look and how it performs. It holds everything solid.
All of our friends who have seen pictures of our bench, or visited our shop, all remark on the look of the leg vise and the huge wooden screw. There are several things people notice on our bench, however the Giant Wooden Screw and the Leg Vise is at the top. Everyone wants to know if we made the wooden screw, (I wish I could say we did) but we tell them no, we got it from Lake Erie Toolworks up in Pennsylvania.
Thanks for making such a super cool and high quality product Lake Erie!
Gary and Jonathon H. – Kansas City, Missouri – USA
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