Richard Maguire workbench

[Mr_P]

One's magnum opus probably shouldn't be a workbench or other shop fittings and fixtures.

Unless your name is Richard Mcguire :lol:

Does the English Woodworker have a distant Scottish relation making benches North of the border ?

 

[Droogs]

Funny you should say that. i just happen to be making a new bench in maple and good scottish elm. wish i was related then i might have got the Mcguire family "bench making" gene instead of the hamster bedding one i seem to have inherited

 

[Trafalgar]

One's magnum opus probably shouldn't be a workbench or other shop fittings and fixtures.

Unless your name is Richard Mcguire :lol:

Well, with the obvious exception of making them as a line of business I should have said. I'm sure Alan Peters himself would have been pleased to own one.

 

[charlibalv]

Just to say I have orderd a Maguire workbench (a 'Workhorse') should be ready in about 8 to 10 weeks. The for those sceptical about buying a bench rather than making my own I, have piece of my coller bone missing and cannot support large heavy objects shuch as the top of a workbench any more.

 

[Jacob]

Lovely as they are that was my thought - if you need one, you're capable of making one.

I think certain people would prefer to spend their time building furniture rather than a workshop tool. And if they have the money to spend, who are we to tell them what to spend them on? It's a bit like the argument between buying a new top-brand plane or a second-hand Stanley.......

True - it wouldn't make the slightest difference to your woodwork whichever you have. But think of the wood you could buy with the savings!

These are good. Almost a quarter of the price. Or easy DIY for less than £100 I would have thought
http://www.artisancoshop.com/eu/product ... bench.html
Basically the trad bench as used by millions throughout the trade and in schools and colleges for the last 100 years or so. Now unfashionable for no good reason.

Must be good; just like mine! Except mine is bigger + 2 vices

 

[woodbrains]

True - it wouldn't make the slightest difference to your woodwork whichever you have. But think of the wood you could buy with the savings!

These are good. Almost a quarter of the price. Or easy DIY for less than £100 I would have thought
http://www.artisancoshop.com/eu/product ... bench.html
Basically the trad bench as used by millions throughout the trade and in schools and colleges for the last 100 years or so.

Must be good; just like mine! Except mine is bigger + 2 vices

Hello,

Funny, but for a quarter the cost of the Maguire bench, they look about 1/10 as good! Nearly 900 quid for a fairly low grade pine joiner bench; not value for money. Of course you can work on one well enough, but I know what I'd prefer.

Mike.

 

[Jacob]

.....

Funny, but for a quarter the cost of the Maguire bench, they look about 1/10 as good! Nearly 900 quid for a fairly low grade pine joiner bench; not value for money. Of course you can work on one well enough, but I know what I'd prefer.

Mike.

Yes I agree they look 1/10th as good but in fact they are 100% as good (give or take a few details).
Being fashionable is pricey!

PS and I feel the Record vice is almost certainly much more useful and better value than those retro-styled leg vices

 

[Racers]

It will be flopping about like beer garden picnic table in a couple of weeks, as there seems to only be one coach bolt to stop the legs racking.

Pete

 

[Jacob]

It will be flopping about like beer garden picnic table in a couple of weeks, as there seems to only be one coach bolt to stop the legs racking.

Pete

The usual thing is to house the legs in the apron. If not then the top rail would also have to be fixed somehow, in addition to the bolt through the leg.
I expect Sellers and co will have thought of something sensible!

 

[Racers]

Nothing visible even when zooming in to the in progress pictures.

Pete

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

Pete, assuming these are made the same as in Paul Sellers videos the legs are prevented from racking by tapered housings with a wedge driven in. The coachbolt only serves to hold the leg in the housing not to prevent racking. It's a good system as any racking causes the wedge to drop and tighten, and it can be easily taken apart. I made a bench like this a couple of years ago and it is solid as a rock.
Having said that if money was no object I thing I'd buy Richards, unfortunately money is a big object so I made one out of construction 4x2s. To me its pretty posh compared to the 25mm ply under 25mm mdf screwed onto a frame sat on a load of ex school drawers that we work on at the dock, nail/screw stops, drill holes for hold downs cut and chisel into at will, every couple of years we replace the mdf, I find the responsibility of a homemade pine english workbench a bit stressful, not sure how I'd cope with a 3 grand bench, then again if money was no object......
Paddy

 

[Racers]

You would thought they'd have featured that in the photos.

Pete

 

[matthewwh]

Nothing wrong with a pine bench at all, a well designed and made one would see a teenager out and Paul's ethos of making woodworking realistically accessible to as many people as possible is admirable. He is also the first to recommend that those who can build their own bench should do so.

I've not seen one of Paul's benches in the flesh, but in fairness you're probably paying about the same rate for the time and labour involved, compare the prices of pine 4 x 2s and seasoned ash/oak in 6 x 6 and bigger!

Richard has taken a more 'in for a penny, in for a pound' approach and done everything as well / solidly / sturdily as humanly possible. I have used one of his benches and it was like the foundations of a cathedral. A Maguire will last for centuries, serving the last man as well as the first and like most things that are an exceptional example of their type, will quite probably increase in value over time.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

According to this article http://blog.lostartpress.com/2013/09/22 ... d-maguire/ Richard Maguire spent most of his time at a woodworking show where his benches were for sale encouraging people not to buy them but to make their own. His woodworking philosophy, from what I have seen on his videos, is very similar to Paul Sellers, minimal tools (not something you should necessarily be encouraging Matthew) and simple traditional designs. I've only discovered him recently and really like what I have seen.
I often find there is a disconnect when you want to make "the best" as Richards workbenches seem to be, in that you end up making things that you could not afford to buy yourself. I could not afford to pay me to work on my boats, luckily I do it for myself for free.

 

[Jacob]

Nothing wrong with a pine bench at all, a well designed and made one would see a teenager out and Paul's ethos of making woodworking realistically accessible to as many people as possible is admirable. He is also the first to recommend that those who can build their own bench should do so.

I've not seen one of Paul's benches in the flesh, but in fairness you're probably paying about the same rate for the time and labour involved, compare the prices of pine 4 x 2s and seasoned ash/oak in 6 x 6 and bigger!

Richard has taken a more 'in for a penny, in for a pound' approach and done everything as well / solidly / sturdily as humanly possible. I have used one of his benches and it was like the foundations of a cathedral. A Maguire will last for centuries, serving the last man as well as the first and like most things that are an exceptional example of their type, will quite probably increase in value over time.

Hmm I don't think the wood thread leg vice would last (or work) too well - that really is a sacrifice of function for style.

A pine bench would last the life of a woodworker, given normal use and dry conditions. What is there to wear out?
Mine's been going strong for 40 years and will see me out. A lot of joinery done on it, much heavier use than for furniture.

 

[mouppe]

I wouldn't hesitate to buy one of Richard's workbenches. I built my own workbench close to ten years ago, and the lumber alone cost me about C$1000. I had no heavy tools to speak of, so I paid the lumber yard a little extra to mill the wood close to final dimension. Vices cost another $300 or so. And I am sure that lumber here is half the cost of lumber in the UK.

Putting cost to one side, and also the difficulty that you need a bench to build a bench so-to-speak, maybe I'd like to spend my time building other things than yet another workbench? It's a fairly easy project unless you want to make it unnecessarily fancy, but very laborious and hard on the back. As a comparison the Lie Nielsen large workbench in maple is $3500.

 

[Jacob]

I wouldn't hesitate to buy one of Richard's workbenches. I built my own workbench close to ten years ago, and the lumber alone cost me about C$1000. I had no heavy tools to speak of, so I paid the lumber yard a little extra to mill the wood close to final dimension. Vices cost another $300 or so. And I am sure that lumber here is half the cost of lumber in the UK. ....

The basic trad bench materials shouldn't cost more than £100 in redwood and Record vices are available 2nd hand for about £30 (£100 ish new).

By all means indulge in steam punk fantasy woodwork if that's what turns you on: benches built like stonehenge, heavy tools bristling with brass knobs, heavy blades made out of mysterious steels from the planet Tharg (PMT 911 etc), huge matching sets of shiny chisels with mirror flat polished faces, saws with incredibly curly gothic handles (don't poke your eye out!), fantastical sharpening regimes involving diamonds & rouge (silk stockings?), power tools like spacecraft, hand tooled leather tool belts/pouches with huge brass buckles and rhinestones
But if you just want to do woodwork you don't need any of this.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Reminds me of the old prayer - O Lord give me want I need, not what I want ...

 

[No skills]

Seems as if building something relatively simple has become rather hard work for everybody, I can understand medical conditions hindering lifting things and maybe using some tools but surely everybody here isnt injured?

I would even go so far to say that knocking up a useable bench should be a quick(ish) fun project, am I that far wrong?

 

[MIGNAL]

We are all injured my friend. Life has a way of inflicting trauma. Before long you are suffering the ailment of woodworkers fetishism, a rather serious and debilitating condition. Just as well I built my Pine workbench 30 years ago. There's no way I could build one now, far too many of life's open wounds.