Nicholson Style Bench

Because this bench is the results of hundreds of years of development i tried to stay true to the text and plate and build the bench with a similar mindset as the original users.

Nicholson style bench. Ive settled on a slightly modified version of chris schwarzs english workbench in his workbench book. Nicholson covered a variety of trades and republished the manuscript over a period of years in various forms very like moxon. My french style bench has 25 boards in it and used up a half gallon of titebond. The french bench relies on mass.

Which are the key to the use of a nicholson style bench. Like many in the woodworking universe i am a benchaholic. My bench isnt a blatant copy of nicholsons. My english bench has used up less than half of one of those little bottles you get at lowes.

The image of nicholsons bench should be familiar to woodworkers. The english or nicholson workbench design is robust simple and well worth considering if youre planning to build your own workbench. The photos shown below are of an english style bench made in oak although pine tends to be my timber of choice for this bench design. Its a traditional english carpenter design and it has some pretty cool features that my old bench never could have dreamed up.

Yes this is a nicholson bench styled after the one drawn up by peter nicholson in his 1831 book mechanics companion. This workbench is hardly a new design as its based on the english nicholson style but it is design to be built with minimal. Last week i spent some time up in maine building a workbench. The 80 minute nicholson workbench.

I drilled a dozen holes for holdfasts on the front then flipped the bench onto its top. One of the biggest differences between the authors is that nicholson was actually a workman whereas joseph moxon was a chronicler.