Jatoba split top workbench
Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)


After 15+ years of working on a makeshift workbench equipped with a decent front vise I finally decided to retire the bench, keep the vise and give it a proper partner. Before you ask, the lumber costs were not bad. In fact it is entirely made from lumber given to me by my brother, which he himself got for free. Leftovers from custom staircase jobs. The only drawback was that most boards were only 4' long so for the split tops there are end-to-end joints to get the final length. The joints are staggered. Here are the details:

• 72” long, 33” wide and 32” high.
• The base, breadboard ends, front vise jaw, front vise handle, maple leaf inlay and tail vise block are made out of jatoba.
• The split tops are made from maple, white and red oak.
• I wanted the bench to be easily moved (still dreaming of a bigger shop) so the top is secured to the base with heavy duty buttons (shown in two of the pictures) and the long stretchers are bolted to the leg assemblies using 3/8” x 5” cross-dowel bolts. Item 05G0705 at Lee Valley. I.e. the bench can be disassembled into 5 parts.
• The front vise is of the quick release type. Item 70G0810 at Lee Valley. I really liked it on my old bench so decided to keep it but make a bigger jaw (18” long x 5 3/4” wide x 2” thick) The jaw and bench are lined with a cork/nitrile-rubber liner. Item 03G1010 at Lee Valley.
• The tail vise is made by Benchcrafted. Item 06G0112 at Lee Valley. Did not have a tail vise on the old bench and I already love it. Used it to hold the board I hand-shaped into a large dowel to make the handle for the front vise.
• The breadboard ends are glued to the split tops at the corners so the seasonal wood movement will go towards the gap between the tops. 3/8” x 5” long cross-dowel bolts are inserted into 1/2” holes to allow for wood movement and keep the center of the breadboards tight to the ends of the split tops.
• The short stretchers connect to the legs using quad-tenons, pinned with brass dowels. Looks really nice with the jatoba.
• The base is finished with polymerized tung oil. Item 56Z4501 at Lee Valley.
• Did not want to use tung oil for the top because it yellows maple too much so I applied two coats of Minwax wipe-on satin poly and rubbed with 0000 steel wool. Just enough protection without actually looking and feeling like a typical film finish.

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