In Need of a Bench

It's been at least a month since I finished my first project and I'm starting to get the itch to get back into the workshop.  That said, I'm not real excited about doing a more complex project with my limited supply of tools and using a couple of sawhorses for a workbench.  I think that I could have built that box from my first project in a fraction of the time it took me if I had the proper equipment.  And, I don't mean power tools.  Having a solid workbench with a vise and some specialty planes would have made many of the tasks a lot easier.

I have read several articles about building workbenches, but in all of them the writer used many power tools which I don't have access to to do the work.  So, thinking that building my own bench was beyond my capability, my next thought was to just buy a bench from a woodworking supply outfit.  I started researching to find the best manufactured ones and it turns out that to get a really solid quality bench I could end up spending around $2,000, like the really nice ones that are custom made from Lie-Nielsen Toolworks.

18th-century Ruobo Workbench by Chris Schwarz

I figure that whatever workbench I get now will be the one that I use the rest of my life, so I want to make sure that I will be happy with it.  I checked a few books out from the library to try and get some ideas, one of which was The Workbench Design Book by Christopher Schwarz.  This is an excellent book, which shows construction of nine different bench designs as well as critiques on each.  One design that I found very helpful was called "18th-century Bench by Hand" in which Chris Schwarz builds a Ruobo style workbench using only hand tools.  The Ruobo bench is based on benches from the writings of the 18th-century French cabinet maker and writer André Ruobo.  Chris Schwarz is a huge fan of this design and he is also a huge fan of hand tools, which makes me trust his opinions more than others who use their benches with power tools.  From the article I can see that I am lacking several tools to build a similar bench by hand, which might sound like a problem, but they are basic tools that I will need for any other project.  For instance, I will need a jointer plane to level the workbench surface, but I've been wanting to buy one for awhile anyway.

I think the Ruobo will definitely be the basis of design for my workbench, but I need to figure out what all features and vise designs I want to incorporate.  The Ruobo's hefty design (with a 5" think bench top) will make it ideal to prevent movement from the hand planing I plan to do.  Also, I love the old school look of this design.