I want to make one of these work benches - food for thought
Thank you
Paulk Workbench is on my project waiting list as well. Paulk Miter Stand is also interesting.
You can buy a Maslow kit for what the top costs, and with the delivery charge have enough left over for the price of the materials. I found an online build log, doesn’t look too hard to build. I’d guess 3/4 cabinet birch for the top, and 1/2 for the bottom.
Ever seen one in person? How stiff is the top?
I have a 4x4’ Paulk table. It’s fairly sturdy because of the torsion box design.
The one they sell is for those who do not want to spend time having fun or have experience with woodwork.
YouTube Ron Paulk building the Paulk Workbench
Being completely honest - the holes in the mail pieces are arguably the most time consuming part of this build. I’ve looked at Ron’s designs a ton and have considered them however he builds for a very specific need - portability. That’s why all of his designs are made to be light and minimal. I think it would be helpful to use Maslow for the hole cutting while relying on conventional woodworking tools to manufacture the rest.
Very cool designs for sure and 110% doable on Maslow! Which makes them EVEN cooler!
Cheers!
Ben
This thread had me watching his Youtube videos. Many many great ideas including several on this bench alone. The horses alone are very well thought out. I can see making a few similar horses without the bench. I can see making a similar non-portable bench without the dog holes for my little shop - just to have a proper sized bench.
Speaking of no dog holes, if I were to make this bench, I would make it with horse hinge slots on both sides so I could have a choice of dogs or not. All I need is to be chasing small parts down a bunch of holes. Beyond that, I’d leave it alone.
I thought I was the one with the farm…never heard of a horse hinge slot.
Maybe a moose hinge slot way up north? Do you use saw-mooses there?
I thought I was the one with the farm…never heard of a horse hinge slot.
Makes more sense if you watch the guy’s video. The underside of the bench is slotted to pick up on the saw horse hinges so it doesn’t slide around.
If horse hinges and a choice of dogs has you going, wait 'til I bring on the Africanized killer shadflies.
It could happen…
I bought the plans and the materials, but never got to do it. Just ordered the Maslow and will use it to finally finish it.
Will do a post and share my experience along the way. Maybe I should look at the plans again and make sure I have the right files ready while waiting for the February shipment
I look forward to seeing how it works out for you. I might use cement board inserts and put a BBQ where the router goes. I see many ways to make this for different purposes.
Thank you
you use saw-mooses there?
Yep. The horses don’t like power tools and can’t find a hoofsaw. Moose are more adaptable
Ah, this is very timely. I have been obsessing over this exact workbench myself recently. I purchased the plans this past weekend for the Paulk compact workbench (the smaller 3’ x 6’ version), and have been watching the videos he created about building the bench.
While I would love to be able to make this entire workbench with a Maslow, I found myself concerned about the Maslow accuracy for it, particularly for the holes in the worktop.
The (Paulk design) holes in the worktop are meant to be 20mm diameter, and precisely laid out across the entire top so you can use bench dogs and fences anchored in the holes and be sure that things pressed against them are lining up precisely at 90 degrees angles (or 45 degrees, or 30 degrees, etc., depending on which holes in which you put the bench dogs). Reduces a lot of the work and adjusting to get angles ‘just right’ when working on projects.
If you’re not looking for the worktop holes to have high precision so you can rely on them for exact angles, but rather you just want them for clamping down/against, then maybe the Maslow is fine.
But I wonder about the Maslow’s ability to create 50-100 holes, each with uniform 20mm diameter (so bench dogs aren’t too loose or too tight), and spread out uniformly across such a large surface (3’ x 6’ or 4’ x 8’).
I know the Maslow inaccuracy may be small, but I’m concerned that over a large surface, it could really add up and ruin ability to trust the angles of the worktop.
What are people’s thoughts on this aspect?
Try a test run with heavy cardboard or scrap sheet goods
We need someone to try it and see.
I suspect we will need to get the chain sag error out before it’s perfect, but
it depends on what sort of distances you are talking about
a 1mm error over 100mm is an error of 0.57 degrees
a 1mm error over 1m is an errof of 0.057 degrees
how exact do the angles need to be?
I expect that the hold diameters are all going to be good enough, the error over
a small distance is pretty small, but it adds up over the full width of the
machine.
Thanks for responses.
The holes are laid out 96mm center to center (about 3.78").
When doing a wood project on the workbench using the holes and bench dogs for alignment, which holes you put the bench dogs in depends on the size of the board on which you’re working, but typically the wider apart you can put the dogs, the better. Typically you’re going to skip a few holes. But sometimes you use the holes to align a fence to guide a plunge saw, in which case you would spread the dogs nearly as wide or long as the workbench, or thereabouts (so, for argument’s sake, let’s say range of 3 to 6 feet).
As to how exact the angles need to be, I don’t honestly know. The selling point of the pre-made Paulk worktop you can buy is that it is made on a commercial CNC and has high precision. I don’t know what that precision is.
Did you ever attempt cutting this on the maslow? I’d love to build one of these workbenches!