WOODWORKING BENCH
In a farm workshop it is better to separate the woodworking department as far as possible from the blacksmith shop. Working wood accumulates a great deal of litter, shavings, blocks, and kindling wood, which are in the way in the blacksmith shop, and a spark from the anvil might set the shavings afire.
A woodworking bench, [Figure 7], carpenter’s bench, it is usually called, needs a short leg vise with wide jaws. The top of the vise should be flush with the top of the bench, so the boards may be worked when lying flat on the top of the bench. For the same reason the bench dog should lower down flush when not needed to hold the end of the board.
It is customary to make carpenter’s benches separate from the shop, and large enough to stand alone, so they may be moved out doors or into other buildings.
Figure 7.—Carpenter’s Bench. A woodworking bench is 16′ long, 3′ 6″ wide and 32″ high. The height, to be particular, should be the length of the leg of the man who uses it. Lincoln, when joking with Stanton, gave it as his opinion that “a man’s legs should be just long enough to reach the ground.” But that rule is not sufficiently definite to satisfy carpenters, so they adopted the inside leg measurement. They claim that the average carpenter is 5′ 10″ tall and he wears a 32″ leg.
