As a former Hope Depot employee in the lumber and building materials department, thank you for restacking your rejects

As an amateur with woodworker, i typically feel overpowered with the entire arrangement kzfaq.infoUgkxrYREG3-7f1Aqk9ams3ZESRNzGnfdUtyQ . Be that as it may, this arrangements drove me through with much clarity and effortlessness woodplans. Works i now work like a genius. That is great!

"I've been involved in drug deals that were less sketchy than getting this thing" instant subscription!

Rex, you get it. You actually get what it means to not have money for tools. I see articles and videos about getting started in woodworking, and the authors have no idea. Steve Ramsey touts his list of tools to outfit a beginner's shop for under $1000. If I had done that as a beginner my kids would have starved and my wife would have left me! Great job with this one.

"yo man,you got any.." *Whispers* "Bench Vice's"

I’m experienced and at 76 I learned a couple of things that I wish I’d known 50 years ago. I subbed right up after this first look. Good original tips I haven’t seen before. Economical too! Thanks kid!

And this is probably why a workbench is called a bench instead of table.

There are tons of beginner woodworking courses in KZfaq. This one seems to be the most practical

Rex, I built this bench about two years ago using only hand tools and Irish stubbornness. It is the most versatile, portable, and user-friendly piece I’ve ever had. Thank you so much for showing all of us budget-based workers a straightforward solution to that first vital fixture.

One thing I'll add as a suggestions is to drill holes along your bench to pass a rope through. Romans used rope for everything. If you have a rope going through your bench, where the holes are the width of the piece of wood you are working on you have a perfect hold down clamp where you can either stand on a board that is passed through the rope underneath the bench, or just step on the rope, you could also tourniquet the rope and clamp it in place for additional downward force. Lots of options, the majority of roman work benches were made extremely crudely by felling a tree, and sawing it in half and drilling holes in it this is a much easier way to build a good bench than carrying one while on military campaign. This is what I am going to do for my backyard benches around my fire pit, got the trees in my shed drying right now, so far it's been 1 year since they were felled so it shouldn't be long and I can do it. An old saying from Rome "Rope is dope!" lol

Camera angles and narration style...... everything about this is Blue's Clues

I worked at Lowes for 11 years, if you restack your reject lumber, your basically a saint in mybook.

I built myself a workbench top using 2x4's for a heavy welded steel frame a friend made me years ago, was inspired by this. I spent a little money on the fir 2x4's at around $5 each since they were a high grade, straight and generally square stock, and my workbench was WIDE and LONG (84 inches long and 40 inches wide) so it ran me about $125 for the wood and $25 for a gallon of glue. The issue I ran into was that I only had 4 pipe clamps wide enough, none of my bar clamps were 48 inches, and for a 9 foot long glue up, that wouldn't do. So I used ratchet straps with carboard under the glue seams and little 2x4 off cuts at each point where the strap goes around, with offcuts under the straps to prevent them from digging in. And holy crap did it WORK. Going to flatten it with my garbage $20 amazon stanley scrub plane in a couple days, get it as flat as I can, and then start drilling 3/4 dog holes. I also built your chisel rabbet plane from a scrap 2x4 cutoff and a 1/2 inch stanley chisel so I could make a deep rabbet for the benchtop to pass over the lip of the angle iron that makes the benchtop Got a lot of inspiration from your videos!

That idea of how to get the legs level is Outstanding. I've always had a hard time getting the legs of anything level, now I'll remember this forever. THANKS

First video I've seen where the host/Craftsman does not try to make a bench that's a museum quality piece that becomes a major costly project that takes up the entire shop and budget. Thank you. Building mine from free wood I get piece by piece. Straight, dense, and very flat. Thx!😊👍

I really like your continued emphasis on affordability. Thanks!

This is EXACTLY what I have been looking for for weeks online and on KZfaq. Thank you Rex!

Rex: "So, we're going to build a bench out of this book." Me: "Wow, he can do anything!"

So glad I found this this channel. Love your vibe, man.

Really wish I watched this before I laminated up the first half of the top for my mini workbench out of 12 3/4” thick boards that began their life as bed slats. They had some hella cupping and twisting and I definitely planed away half of the wood that was there in the first place. But seeing how you clamped them and used the boards themselves to find gaps and identify twist and bowing… that would’ve been much easier than referencing them against the “flat-ish” grimy workbench built into my basement and then essentially planing madly until they rocked “only a little”

As a beginner woodworker (hand tools) I find the channel to be one of the best. Again, thanks!

Dude! The trick for the square mortise!! I already have made 3 workbenches on the cheap, that trick is having me consider making this bench! Great idea

Thanks for this... I was as impressed with the clarity and completeness of your descriptions I was with the simplicity and effectiveness of your project...

I'll be building one of these, and probably helping two of my friends build their own. this thing will be a big help - I'm getting too old to beat hell out of my knees and back using the floor and blocks or sawhorses. as an aside: your presentations are admirably concise, clear, and complete.

Thank You for this video, I had great fun making this bench, I actually made it a bit shorter (4ft as I live in a really small place with no shed) I made the top really flat (with my newly refurbished plane, thanks to your video series ) I now use it for all my wood working and crafts, as a coffee table, as extra seating when friends come over and somewhere for my bag of tools to live under :-) sorted

What a great idea for the levelling of the bottom legs --- the half-cut pencil glued to another flat piece of wood, simple but something the normal person wouldn't have thought of ---- only one word for it ... nice.

I love these vids, learning a lot. My back wouldn’t survive the low version for 5 mins but easy fix

This is a great demonstration of using simple techniques to get the job done! Things I know myself often would overlook or not even think of, thanks Rex!

Great illustrative video. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

3 seconds before drilling my legs, I just realized I haven't turned the bench upside down. Gonna be a long build.

After a couple of small woodworking projects done on the floor of my living room, I realized I really need a work bench. This is by far the most practical project that fits my tight space and also includes skills I need to practice! Thank you!!

I like how you went about getting your vice fix ;) I'm glad I held on to mine! For maximum strength, I would probably use an untapered 2x4” and just cut 2x4 angled slots to hold them in. I have everything to make the bench, but space to put it.

Rex, I have really enjoyed your channel. I've been carefully scrounging for what I need and I'm finally ready to make my own work bench. But I have a few questions. I watch your videos every week, usually a few times. I watch which wood holding accessories you use from the bench in your videos and which ones you don't. Now that you have had the bench for some time if you did it all over again what would you do different? What accessories did you add that wound up collecting dust? Do you ever use the palm hold. Does the crochet get in the way? After you added the vice what was superfluous? I would love to see a video with the 30 dollar bench 2.0. lessons learned. For those of us who are still way behind.

Thanks for the info on the book by Chris Schwarz , you made an amazing bench.

Hey Rex, I just finished my $30 work bench and wanted to thank you. My bench rocks and your channel is awesome!!! :)

Loving your videos Rex. I’m halfway through building my bench. I do rigging on traditional sailing ships and I love old fashioned hand tools and benches. I built a traditional riggers horse last year to help with the special work holding needs of rigging, holding lines under tension with space to work all the way around for splicing, serving etc.. the design is one used for hundreds of years. So naturally I was attracted to the simple historical style of the Roman bench. Cheers. Ryan

Great video. I like the simplicity of the design. Looking forward to see how it evolves of the coming weeks.

I’m a carpenter. I’m also a photographer and videographer. I just wanted to let you know you’re focused on the wall behind you in almost all of your shots. Besides that keep up the good work!

So happy I just discovered Rex's channel, the best advice for woodworking on a budget. Thank you

Just wanted to thank you for the inspiration and all the tips! Several months ago I was searching for different workbenches when I found your $30 workbench. Really liked it, went to read a Chris Schwarz book you mentioned, then several more from him and decided to build his anarchist's workbench. Then I realized that it could be too much to start with, so I scaled down to his Nicholson bench, but in the end got back to your video again, haha. Yes, it's no longer $30 but I still went for a laminated top opposed to your updated version of just planks and battens. Just for the record, I ended up using four 45x70mm (almost 2x4 which would be 38x89mm) 3m balks of douglas fir and it costed me EUR54 in Apr'22 in the Netherlands. Not $30 but still affordable!

Sit down workbench makes so much sense. I had never seen this before and it is a great idea. Thanks for the video.

Beautiful! You're killing it, man! Thank you so much for the quality content! I especially enjoy your sense of humor.

Very good speaking style: clear, concise, great diction and delivery. No unnecessarily long or obscure words, no jargon or bafflegab and no talking down to the viewer. Great for beginners and the less experienced but experts could learn something too.

Loving this channel my brother! Lots of great ideas and tips for a beginner like myself! The knowledge is greatly appreciate now for practice🙇🏻‍♂️

17:55 Rex wearing hearing protection while drilling with his brace...Easy there bud! Thanks for your instructing, payment shortly.

Awesome How to build a 30 dollar workbench Rex. Thanks for the knowledge Sir

I'm currently making this to start in woodworking, learning a lot just from the process. Thanks!

Fantastic. I made one and it reignited my love of wood working. Thank you!

That pencil trick, with it planed in half and glued to a small block to level the bottom of the legs is amazing, thank you for that.

yay, fresno gets a mention. good ol' city in the heart of central valley

I hand-ground a large telescope mirror on a bench like this years ago. It's a very good arrangement for certain types of motions, all your weight is working for you, both in holding things down and applying force to your tool. It's a comfortable way to do some operations.

Barely over a minute into this video he mentions the city I was born in and gives me a perfectly sculpted idea of what it’s like to hunt down quality tools that have stood the test of time. Liked and subscribed lmao

A great video, but I would like to add a couple of things. First, having a similar - but wider - work bench can be a great workspace for assembly. Imagine assembling a cabinet or similar item on a regular height workbench, and you will see it could mean standing on crates of whatever to do the job. The alternative would be crawling around on the floor for much of the task. A low, stable bench would be ideal for such jobs. My second point deals with the glue-up of the top. When gluing parts together, whether edge joining or just gluing doweled parts together and so on, I learned over the years that after the parts have been clamped, some of the glue is absorbed into wood pores and, in some cases, the clamps are really not all the snug any longer. While you might be doing this, it might be helpful to point this out to beginning woodworkers. After clamping, allow the parts to set for a few minutes, then tighten the clamps again. Sometimes no change is noted, but now and then you'll find the clamps can but easily turn 3/4 of a turn or so. Just good to check. Love your videos, Rex, and believe they are helpful for nearly any beginner, and the seasoned woodworker can always pick up a useful tip or two as well.

Tip for the poor woodworkers: the bottom support members of many kinds of pallets are rough-sawn oak which, with a little extra work can be used on tons of projects where you want a decent hardwood.

I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops. Seen some of your videos before and they were great. But this one is the "magic bean" that made me hit the Subscribe button.

Since my joints got bad, I'm having to do most of my woodworking sitting down now & it's so much easier for most things & really adds to the stability. I even work at the lathe sitting down; the extra leverage you can get by standing doesn't seem to be necessary at all (at least on things up to about 8" diameter).

Love your videos. I've built several different benches/tables similar to this with construction lumber like you did. But something I always do that makes things easier on putting the 2x4 benchtop together is I drill holes all the way through the boards. I then get some 1/2" all thread and put them through the boards. On a bench of about 6 feet long yours I use 4 pieces. It makes it easier to glue up all the boards at once. Cap the holes on the end and you never notice. Just keep in mind where they are for when you put on the accessories it drill dog holes.

I've just been building this workbench the last few days, and it coming on very well, really liking it! One thing I struggled with was the hatchet approach to making the tenons, my wood had quite a few knots and so very tricky to stop it splitting in all different directions. After couple of attempts I gave up on the hatchet, but then had better success with cutting down to octagon shape with saw, then using chisel to get to round(ish!). Hope this help someone else who has knotty wood!

After watching this video earlier this year I made a bench like this. Instead of 2x4 lumber I used a 9” spruce log cut in half length-ways for the top. I bought 1.25” pine wood dowels for the legs, which werent expensive. Same design otherwise.

That got all intense into bevel gauges real quick. Great channel!

This is really refreshing, I've been watching literally 100s of woodworking videos and everybody seems to have a full industrial work shop with more tools I can handle and this channel, here's a guy using an axe to make round wedges lol, love it! - subscribed

Rex - thanks for this video/series and for the tip sheet. I've just finished the bench as a first real woodworking project. A great learning project - especially for those without a bench. Mine's far from beautiful but is certainly solid and way more functional than a pair of crappy sawhorses and plywood. I'd give myself the following grades on the components... wood selection B, bench top glue up B-, leg mortises B+, leg tenons C-, wedges D-. Overall, I'm really happy with the results. I learned a lot and now have a solid bench that I can use for decades! Thanks Again!

Just discovered your channel. Great stuff. Good content, great presentation. Looking forward to exploring your back catalog of videos as well as future ones. 🤜💥🤛

Nice looking bench. I made something similar except I did the legs out of 2x3's that Lowe's sells. Since then I made a larger bench using clear SYP 2x4's for the top with 3x3 legs. I ripped 2x6's to get 3" boards to glue up for the framework for the base.

This video got recommend to me for some reason and as I’m watching you say you’ve been to Fresno where I’m watching this. Wild

Another great video with lots of information.

Excellent tutorial! Love the trick for bevel it the bottoms of the legs - thank you!!!!

Build you own bench is the way to go. I used birch plywood for the top because it look great. I have 1/4 " plywood the same size as the top for when I'm doing "work" on it.

Great video. And, great bench idea. That's not unlike a Japanese work bench. I subscribed!

you even don't have to split the pencil: - just drill a hole in a woodblock so the pencil fits in not to tight and not to loose. - don't go through the block, so it can sit in - saves the glue too and the pencil can used "as intended" afterwards.

this is the best video to teach, you don't need to have $20000 tools to make a $50 table ! good job.

thank you from the common man. i appreciate how simple you explain steps for wood working.

When I went to the store to get my lumber for this my only two options were white wood 2x4 or 2x8 SYP so I’ve spent the entire day ripping them into 2x4s and got my first set glued up, this build is turning out to be a bigger project than I thought

just finished my bench. it has 8 legs incase any of them are weak it isn't to big of an issue. The one improvement I came up with is to use a 2x6 as the outside board. this way it works like a mini apron for a crochet and you can drill holes in it for holdfasts.

Simple explanation for a kool project, thanks for sharing!

The half pencil on flat scrap of wood to mark how to cut the legs is great! I always wondered how one figures out how to cut an angled leg (whether intentionally angled or not :), flat on the bottom. Thank you!

This is a great bench. But can kick it up a notch. instead of getting the eight foot 2x4's go to the 16 foot 2x4 and have them cut it in half . And why you ask what the reason for doing it. The 16 foot 2x4's come from an older tree and the wood is much harder than the 8 foot ones. All of my work benches start with 16 foot material and well worth the extra for the longer material. Check out the difference between the woods.

Honestly these videos are so god damn helpful I finally have tools with which i can fuel my gaming addiction

nicely done! I will be following you on my own build.

Nicely explained simple project many thanks bren

Damn. That is kind of an awesome little bench. It's perfect for sitting and working. I might have to build one for myself.

Hey, @Rex Krueger, thanks for your videos. Here's a question: could one build this bench with fasteners instead of glue? I ask because I live in Brazil, and in my region it's not very easy to find dry wood, but I figured I could use some boards (2cm x 30cm x 3m) that are easy to find here. The problem: it's frequently very wet (green?) wood, mostly pine.

I got some free scrap wood from a friend and I was able to make a crappier version of this bench, but still totally functional. I don't do a lot of wood working, but every time I need it I appreciate having made it. it stores and takes up hardly any space and I will use it to bootstrap me to a better bigger workbench whenever I finally settle down. Thank you so much for this video!

This video arrived at just the right time. I'll be making one of these as soon as I can get some 2x4s. Thanks for the tips and sharing your ideas. Best wishes

Thanks for your time making this series. You could also turn this into an outdoor shavehorse if you have no room for another work bench indoors.

fantastic video. subscribed. this video could not have come at a better time for me.

36 years ago as a apprentice, a old master cabinet maker showed me pictures of these benches and yes they are mainly for sitting on as you work but were made long so two people could work. Back then I thought, thank god times have moved on, here in the UK I can not imagine working that way, but it's nice watching youtube video's showing woodworking roots

I'm really enjoying this series Rex!

Wish I had thought of shaping the fir before glue-up when I made my bench!

Remember when you reviewed that wooden Chinese plane? I commented that it was designed to use at a knee height bench so you can add leverage with your body. This would be the perfect chance to show off that plane now with this bench.

Now here is a guy whose blogs are great AND I can hear and understand what he is saying. Thank you

Really cool! Very well put-together and instructive video, thanks alot!

See! I actually have a folding aluminum one that some crazy person put out on the curb. I have used it for years. Now I want to take it to the scrap yard and make this one... Dang you Rex! LMAO! Very cool simple build. I can hardly wait to see your ideas for improving it.

This is a really good series. I’m so glad our KZfaq overlords suggested this channel on my feed. It’s almost like the Romans knew what they were doing.

These vids are awesome keep it up man

I bought a pull saw and a hatchet from harbor freight and made this low Roman bench. The change in my work output is an order of magnitude greater. I had been struggling to make your jointers mallet while I was making the bench. I got a low point with it when I noticed I would have to remake the mallet handle completely. Then I finished the bench and redid the handle blank in thirty minutes when the first blank had taken at least three hours

And the pencil trick! Dropping some knowledge!

Using the pencil to level the legs is a useful trick.

Great descriptions. Nice job editing with the graphics. It helps. Awsome vid. Thanks! 😄

That zen/Chinese like riddle you said about the bench in the beginning is true, when I was way younger I used to do some wood working with my father, a few months ago I did a small home project and after the first 5 minutes into it I was like, fuck, I really need a workbench. It's so complicated to do some work without a bench, still I managed to do it with some upside down buckets like you mentioned but it was a pain in the ass.