Small-Shop Workbench

Great plans and guidance.

However 50 pages of instructions were overkill in my opinion. That said the close detail would be helpful for a beginner woodworker

Hi Scott. It’s been a couple weeks since purchasing your workbench plans. I too am in a 1-car garage bay that I’ve been building out within a 3-bay garage. Inspired by several small shop tours, step one was clearing the space of 30+ years of tools and workbenches, starting with a redesign built around a new Sawstop PCS I’m currently assembling. Step 2 will be your challenge I’ve accepted, that being to “up my game” with your workbench design. Years ago, I repurposed some open engineering lab tables, replacing their tabletops with laminated MDF sheets as used in your design. I finished them in white oak trim and sealed with tung oil. One is larger than your plans call for, so the inspiration is to cut down the larger one for incorporation into your design. After replicating an alder night stand no longer available from a local wood furniture manufacturer, I feel like I’m ready for my 2nd true furniture challenge, your Small Shop Workbench. Ordered the recommended Dowelmax jig yesterday, so now to select a local Colorado wood species to use.

I have not started building it yet. The plans are well put together and able to read and build from without any problems. I just got a new table saw and will start building after that is put together. Looking forward to the build.

Very thorough and well thought out. Thanks for putting in the effort.

Very easy to follow plans.

I am finally getting and setting up my wood working shop after many years of basic carpentry and cobbling things together. I'd like to make some nice shop cabinets that I will enjoy using and looking at and so I can use the equipment I'm getting and have my small tools and supplies conveniently stored. After many many hours over the past year of looking at many Utube channels, I've settled on a few that seem to be truly educational rather than superficial and just trying to sell product and also, are focused on the serious hobby cabinet maker. I don't want to know how to make anything with pallets and nails that will last a month and look like it came from the bargain bin. So I settled on the small shop workbench by Scott Walsh, although I plan to make the panels with prefinished birch plywood and not the labour intensive glue up of solid wood. I've only skimmed the plans but they appear to be thorough and Scott was kind enough to confirm my approach to using pre-finished plywood. I won't be able to build this until after I get the rest of my shop supplies and a bit more equipment and complete at least one sled and probably after I make the miter saw station. I bought these plans when I did because they were offered at a great discount and because I can go through the plans in more detail at my leisure prior to actually starting the build as I may very well refine the dimensions to match height of other shop cabinets, size of my work projects and also reduce or eliminate the full size shelf under the dog holed top. I also bought Scott's Joinery course which I'm most of the way through and he has done an excellent job arranging a very comprehensive course that will help give me enough confidence to tackle the kinds of joinery I'd like to do. Thank you Scott.

I purchased this plan with the intention of making it for my gardening spouse. It'll make a great workspace for her in the basement getting her garden plants and vegetables ready for the great outdoors. I love how the videos and instructions are clearly presented. Only problem is my workshop is unheated and it's winter, so I'll have to wait patiently until warmer weather 🤨

Hey Scott,

I found your plans through your YouTube. I wanted to build the evergreen desk but the cost of the course was over my budget. However, I think the work bench is actually perfect for me and the cost was perfect at 20 bucks. I am relatively new to wood working and I’m building my shop and tool collection. We recently purchased our first house so this build is perfect for a starting place for my garage shop area.

My overall thoughts are that the build itself is awesome and I’ve been recommending it to all my friends who do woodworking. But for me, as a newer to woodworker (this being the first wood working plans I’ve ever purchased), the plans lack the details, directions, instructions, and descriptions I would prefer, having been working on the project for a couple weeks now (I have the carcass built but all the materials are a bit pricy so it’s going to take me a few pay checks). I’ve found myself frequently going to the YouTube video to see if you included detail of how you did a particular thing because the plans didn’t include that detail, and other times what’s in the video doesn’t match the plans. For example, on the video, the groove cut on the legs to accept the panel is cut into the first dowel hole, but in the plans you have a very clear channel that matches the channel in the rail/apron. That’s such a small detail but I realized it was easier to make the cut based on your YouTube video because the cut could go longer on each leg. At the end of the plans, you include plans for the miter template to rout out but don’t include any discussion of why, there’s no photos/renderings to see why you would do that or how it would work. On the video you put the vice, including a piece of wood around the vice that looks nice and that’s not included in the plans. But I came to the plans from the video and wanted the instruction on the vice as that was an important part of the work bench (and your video since you have a section on work holding). On the video, you encourage people to plan out what will be going into their drawers, and like you, I taped out a mock drawer and planned then out, so I knew that I didn’t want 3, 3, and 3, equal drawers like you see in your plans, but instead I wanted the custom drawers like you have in your video. This being my first time, I’m going to wing it based off your video, but I wish the plans had more instruction about installing different size shelves. Your plans say to put a 1/4 groove to accept the panel that was rabbeted to 1/4 inches, however, I found that to be far too tight of a tolerance due to the wood warping a little and my tools not having as tight of tolerances. Etc.

Overall, I believe the work bench is a 5 star work bench. It’s the best bench I’ve found that checks all of the boxes with storage, size, quality, etc. I do think the plans themselves are pretty good but I’m an annoying lawyer who likes instructions and when they are clear and felt that things could be more clear on the plans.

Love your videos and work!! Thanks

I ordered the plans so I could learn to build correctly .It will be a challenge for me
😅. Nice to see your great channel at the same Time!

Excellent plans, description, diagrams, helpful tips and material list. Highly recommended.

Small-Shop Workbench

High quality work

Small-Shop Workbench

The plans are very clear and detailed. Can’t wait to get started on this one, but will warm up my technique before then. Definitely don’t want to “hack” my way through this. This bench commands respect.