The top of my workbench is made from 5 foot long 2x4s. I need to cut my 10 footers in half. I also want to practice cutting nice with a hand saw.

I need something to push against, so I used my holdfasts to attach a baton to the bench. This give s me something to stabilise the work while I cut it.

I marked out the cut lines with a square and a knife and used a chisel to make a notch to guide my saw. Paul Sellers calls this a “knife wall” and it makes it super easy to keep the saw straight and gives nice cuts.

I cut all my boards down and did a nice job.

Now for the planing…

I needed way to hold the work while I planed and I don’t have a vise. Luckily it’s all figured out centuries ago.

I’m not sure what it’s called but I screwed an angled block to the face of my bench that traps the wood against my bench. I added some pegs to support the bottom and the system works perfect!

I need to plane the faces too, and need a way to hold the work. 3 small pegs arranged like an L in the top of my workbench work beautifully.

A sharp plane is fun to use. It makes some beautiful curls of thin wood and leaves a really nice surface.

It sure would be easier to make a workbench if I had a workbench. Lucky for me, I had a big ass hunk of butcher block counter top.

I screwed some lumber to the wall with masonry screws and attached the counter to it. I added some legs and a 2×6 to the front and voila!

I also added some holes for a pair of holdfasts. It’s solid as shit, too bad it’s attached to the wall.

I’ve always been interested in woodworking, I just never had the equipment and space. I always thought you need table saw, jointer, surface planner, routers and gobs of other expensive machines to do it.

A while back I found the YouTube channel of a guy named Paul Sellers. Paul is an old school furniture maker and does so using primary I’ll hand tools. Now he runs a woodworking school and publishes books and tons of social media content (blogs, and videos). His series of videos on making a joiners mallet inspired me to give it a shot. I borrowed a couple hand planes from my dad, and bought a cheap set of chisels from Harbor Freight and went to town.

I quickly found out if I want to do stuff like this, I need a workbench much better than my little Black and Decker workmate.

I decided to build a Roubo style workbench. I was going to make it out of cheap framing lumber, and I was going to do it with mostly hand tools.

Fast forward to now. I have a pile of lumber in my basement, and cleaned out a corner.