The BARN Workbench is named for a community group of woodworkers and other artisans. BARN is the Bainbridge Artisan Resource Network located on Bainbridge Island. The island is directly across and a 35 minute ferry ride away from Seattle. Started by a group of enthusiastic woodworkers, the group has grown to include artisans with a number of interests, including fabric artists, metal workers, jewelers, writers, printers and more. After years of organizing and fundraising, they’re opening an incredible facility so that all the groups can share knowledge, tools and a great space to work in.

A great maker workspace

The woodworkers at BARN have built an incredible workshop with a little help from local professionals including Bob Spangler, Hugh Montgomery and myself to guide them through various tasks. Being the workbench junkie that I am, I took on the project of designing a workbench for the woodworkers’ bench room. The result is the BARN Workbench.

Every workbench project comes with a number of requirements or limitations. The BARN bench is no different. The bench is designed for hand tool woodworkers who might occasionally need to use a power tool like a Domino. It also had to be made at a moderate cost, assembled quickly with help from woodworkers with various levels of experience. And, there’s nine of them to make.

As the benches are being built, I’ll get into more details, but for now here are the basics of the design.

To benefit working with hand tools, I put an emphasis on quality hardware that serious woodworkers can appreciate. Each bench is equipped with a Benchcrafted Classic Leg Vise with a Criss Cross mechanism. The tail vise is a simple, well made 7” metal quick release model from Yost.

Rather than gluing up nine bench tops, the BARN bench uses a pre-made 25” x 72” x 1-7/8” thick maple top from Perfect Plank. The base is squared and milled 4×4 fir from your neighborhood home center with the legs doubled in width. Chris Schwarz took this approach with his excellent 2-day workbench plan. If you’re spoiled by building out of hardwood, you’ll find that working with flash kiln dried material is tricky, but doable if you take your time. Lots of expansion and cracking if you’re not careful. The results are plenty strong and inexpensive.

At this point, a question on a number of regular readers’ minds is where’s the digital woodworking in this bench? Was a CNC used? The answer to both questions, of course, is yes. Mounting a Benchcrafted vise requires a fair amount of work to create a large hole and a deep mortised pocket in the front left leg and vise chop. Certainly, this can be done by hand or with other power tools but with nine benches to build, a CNC makes the process simple, accurate and fast. Same for cutting and chamfering the very accurately placed dog holes in the top. In this case, for some of the special features of the top that I’ll get into later, accurate dog hole placement is particularly critical. Definitely, you can do this with other tools, but for this project, the CNC saves time and delivers accuracy.

As Steve Jobs used to say, “…there’s one more thing”. The vise chops. Being a designer, I thought it would be fun to make each bench unique and so using Rhino3D, I created a special 3D design for each vise chop. Then I milled them using 3D milling techniques I programmed in RhinoCAM on my CNCs. I used hard maple, local western maple, and eastern walnut. Why not make the vise chops fun to see and touch? Here’s a sneak peek of the six of the ten vise chops (9 + 1 spare) waiting for completion.

On the next BARN Workbench Post, I’ll take you on a video tour of the prototype bench and the BARN Bench features.

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On Sunday July 19th, I held a Live Sunday Workshop via Zoom. The topic was about the parametric plywood bench that was featured in the December 2019 issue of Popular Woodworking magazine. I showed how to vary the design and several methods to construct it. Speaking of which, above is a link to the recording on my YouTube Channel.

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On June 21st, I’ll follow up and take the previous week’s 2.5D design and make it into a 3D CNC carved design using a couple of simple 3D CAD techniques. And, how to machine it, of course. Plus… Well, let’s just say that I’ll give you something to consider regarding future furniture design using the power of digital woodworking tools.

If a question that comes up during the workshop, just use the chat function in Zoom and I’ll do my best to answer it live. I may have a few questions of my own, too and will send out polls during the event. 

See you at the next TWO Sunday Workshops. Part one is 2D design and machining. Part two is 3D design and machining.

To join the workshop, at the time of the meeting click the links below.

June 14th Sunday Workshop PART ONE

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84819051001?pwd=c0oxcHhMVHcxSDlCbzNmMmNkQVRiQT09

Meeting ID: 8848 1905 1001   Password: 239927

June 21st Sunday Workshop PART TWO

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83477019799?pwd=aG5UVTZVU2ZPa01QK3cvRzkwbS9adz09

Meeting ID: 834 7701 9799   Password: 299007

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Okay it’s time. Previous workshops have been filled up, I rarely leave time fAfter 4 Live Sunday Workshops, it’s time for an open Q and A. I’ve been doing a lot of talking that last forr workshops, leaving little time at the end for questions. Now, it’s your turn. On the May 31st workshop, I’m opening up the workshop for questions, advice and quick demos. So that I can come prepared, if you already have questions you’d like to ask, email ahead of time to me at workshops@woodworking.digital.  If it’s something complicated or a process or technique or a demo you’d like to see, email questions ahead of time so I can be ready to show it during the workshop.  But, no worries. If a question that comes up during the workshop, that’s okay, too. Just use the chat function in Zoom and I’ll do my best to answer it live. I may have a few questions of my own, too and will send out polls during the event. 

See you at the next Sunday Workshop.

To join the workshop, at the time of the meeting click the link below.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81959653414?pwd=SFl5MnVZejZHMVNVSTkvbGsxbWMrdz09

Meeting ID: 819 5965 3414   Password: 350891

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