[TheForge] Benches

[Albin Drzewianowski]

It can come down to which material are you more comfortable working with.
In my case, I was more comfortable making my workbenches out of wood rather
than welding up large size structural steel.  when finished, I placed a
piece of 3/16" sheet steel on the bench top so that I could lay hot steel on
the bench.  (unexpected advantage,  I can easily write and draw on the sheet
steel with soapstone or silver pencil.  Handy to compare hot work to scroll
drawing, or other shapes.)

Also, do you have the equipment to make it out of steel?  I do not have the
luxury of having the equipment to make a large steel bench,  so I went with
wood. 

And of course, my bench is over engineered.  Legs are 6x6s and component
parts are 2x6 and/or 2x8  bolted together with 3/8  and/or 1/2  all-thread
and bolts. 

D-ski 
Westminster, MD     
The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:theforge-
> bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Graham Whaley
> Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 4:56 AM
> To: Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA
> Subject: [TheForge] Benches
> 
> I need to build a bench to mount the leg vices on, and probably an
engineers
> vice as well. Question is, do I make it out of wood or metal? What do you
> folks prefer?
> Making a bench out of wood for beating hot metal near doesn't immediately
> seem like the best idea :-)
> 
>   Graham