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
