Having the right height for your workbench is important for both the quality of your work and maintaining the right posture when working on your new wood carvings.
The ideal height for your workbench is 90cm (35 inches) off the ground if you are of average height at around 175cm. For every 5cm that you are taller or shorter, the bench should also be brought up higher or lower by an additional 4-6cm depending on what feels more convenient and natural.
Different heights of workbenches are used for different tasks in wood carving and other wood related fields, this is further discussed below. If you would like to find out about the ideal height of a workbench for what you are planning to use it for, you’ll definitely find it below.
Benefits of Taller Workbenches Vs. Shorter Workbenches
Apart from comfort, there are a few crucial things to know about the influence, the height of your workbench has on your work. If you are making a wood bench from scratch, you can follow these simple 9 steps. It will help you to make a perfect wood bench that works best for you.
The most simple way of remembering it is that lower workbenches are good for leverage but not so good for posture, while high workbenches are great for your back but won’t make it any easier working with chisels.
The reason for that is the angle at which your body is placed when you are working with tools. If you are over the workpiece then it will be easier for you to apply pressure and cut through the wood. For that, you, of course, will have the workbench positioned lower.
This also means that you probably will get tired a little faster on a lower workbench than on a high one, although less physical work is needed with a lower workbench. This is because although your hands will have an easier time, standing up will tire you out more.
When Should My Workbench Be Higher And When Must It Be Lower?
The answer to this depends on what kind of work you are doing.
If you are power carving and using mostly using electrical tools your workbench is best to be a little higher than the average. This way you have much more support for when you are working long hours, and overall things will be more convenient.
On the other side, if you are whittling or mostly using tools such as chisels and gouges then a lower workbench is definitely a better one for you as you will find it much easier to cut through wood while having more of your body weight over your workpiece.
With that said experience will tell what feels more natural. For some people, it doesn’t play a big role, and others find a lower or a higher bench much more practical in use. Try it out and know for yourself.
By How Much Should You Lower/Raise Your Workbench
Above you read about all the different perks of lowering or raising your workbench. However, it is important to know that raising it too much is just as bad of an idea as lowering it too low.
In this section of the article, we are going to discuss the suitable measurements for a “lower” and “higher” workbench
Lower workbench height
If the average workbench should be around 90cm off the ground, then a below average workbench is between 75-85cm. Keep in mind that if you are taller than 175cm you should adjust these measurements according to your height by adding or subtracting around the same number of cm from the bench.
For example, if you are 190cm tall, then a low workbench would be around 90-105cm off the ground.
Just a reminder that lower workbenches are best for work with tools where you need some strength in cutting through the wood, leaning over the table, and using your body weight will greatly help you in that.
Higher (raised) workbench height
The heigh of a raised workbench varies from around 95-105cm. This is higher than the average 90cm but it is not high enough to cause any discomfort.
Just like with the lowered workbench, this depends on your initial height. The 95-105cm measurement comes from a height if you are 175cm. If you are significantly taller or shorter, keep in mind you should also change the height of your workbench accordingly.
Just to remind you, that the main benefit of a higher workbench is that you get less tired standing up when working, and it is mostly suitable for when you are power carving or using it for purposes that don’t require your physical power.
How To Raise Your Work Bench
While there are workbenches that can be manually raised and lowered by a mechanism, those are by far not the most common ones woodcarvers use. Therefore if you already possess a workbench and you would like to adjust the height, here is how it’s done.
Probably the best way to do it is by Attaching Wooden Extensions to the Table Legs.
The process is purely DIY and is not at all complicated although it takes an hour or two.
You can view a helpful tutorial on how to do it on wikihow. Just take a look at method number 2.
To summarize, however, this process involves drilling a hole in the legs of your workbench to attach an extension to the tip of the leg. If you are considering drilling a hole, Then you have to know what is the correct speed of drilling. Otherwise, there is a slightly chance that you will end up cracking the wood bench leg.
This is our opinion is the most convenient way to approach this task, as you can always take off the attachment and replace it with something higher or lower in the case that you don’t like it.
This method also allows you to significantly increase the height of your workbench, unlike most other methods that only raise up the table leg by 3-5cm.
If you do want to raise the height of your workbench by only a few cms then just get some slipsticks under each table leg
How To Lower Your Workbench
There is not much innovation to this method, as you simply have to saw off a little bit off the legs of your workbench. However, before you try it you should probably run a few tests on the most convenient height.
The best way to do it is by wearing taller shoes for a little when working on behind your workbench or standing on something that raises you these extra few cms.
Only after you are sure of the right height should you continue to saw off the legs of the table.
It’s best you remove length from workbench leg from the side that touches the desk and NOT the floor. Mostly for aesthetics reasons and a little more sturdiness for the workbench.
TIP
With that said, don’t worry about cutting off too much. This is more of a reversible process than you think, to raise the bench back up, you only need to read the above subheading and spend an additional few hours on your workbench.
