My First Build: The Low Roman Workbench

In 2022, after a rough breakup, I decided to become constructive instead of destructive.

I started watching woodworking videos on YouTube and found Rex Krueger. Rex made woodworking look accessible: a few hand tools, cheap lumber, no garage full of machines. He showed a low Roman workbench and talked about the book that gave him the idea, Ingenious Mechanicks by Christopher Schwarz.

So I bought the book and read it cover to cover. That’s how I found Lost Art Press, and boy, was that a rabbit hole.

This is the bench, one step and one photo at a time.

The Book

Adam's copy of Ingenious Mechanicks: Early Workbenches & Workholding, with an old engraving of a craftsman at a low bench on the cover. — The book that started it.

Ingenious Mechanicks is about the earliest workbenches we know of. Schwarz starts with the oldest picture of a Western workbench, from Pompeii, and goes all the way to a Roman fort in Germany to look at the oldest one still around.

The case for these early benches is simple: they cost less, take less wood, go together in a couple of days, and you can sit on them. For a guy in an apartment with no shop and no bench, that sold it.

Here’s the whole thing on one sheet.

Three-view drawing of a low Roman workbench: a slab of 2x4s glued face to face, four splayed legs with round through-tenons, and a wedge in each tenon running across the grain of the top. — What you’re building: one slab, four legs, four wedges.

The Lumber

The whole bench is made from plain construction 2x4s, the same studs they frame houses with. The tag said 2×4-96″ Burrill Premium Fir Stud, $5.98 apiece.

I lived in an apartment at the time, so I had to make it work. I brought the lumber home in my Kia…

A bundle of eight-foot 2x4s loaded through the back hatch of a Kia, reaching up between the front seats. — The Kia, doing truck work.

…and hauled it upstairs. Eight-foot boards and an apartment stairwell don’t get along, but we worked it out.

Long 2x4s leaning up an apartment staircase. — Eight feet of 2×4 versus one stairwell.

Laid out on the living room floor, that’s the whole top. It just doesn’t know it yet.

A row of 2x4s laid side by side on a living room carpet. — A top, eventually.

Two Planes

Then I got the gumption to buy some Lie-Nielsen planes: a No. 5 jack plane and a No. 4 in bronze. Those two did the whole project. Well, those two plus a Japanese pull saw and a drill. Okay, those two did all the planing.

A new Lie-Nielsen No. 5 jack plane and a bronze No. 4 smoothing plane side by side on a wooden table, paper tags still on. — The No. 5 jack and the bronze No. 4, tags still on.

Planing the Boards

Construction 2x4s aren’t made for furniture. So one by one, every board got planed by hand before it went anywhere near the glue. In the apartment. The shavings got everywhere.

The No. 5 jack plane resting on 2x4s covered in fresh shavings. — One board down, a pile to go.

The Glue-Up

I glued the top up in sections, then glued the sections together. The glue goes on in squiggles. There’s no art to it; you just want every inch covered.

Four 2x4s on edge with white wood glue squiggled down their faces. — Glue squiggles. Not my best handwriting.

Parchment paper from the kitchen went underneath so the slab didn’t become part of the table.

The glued-up slab of 2x4s clamped tight with long bar clamps, drying indoors. — Clamped up and drying, still indoors.

A Workbench With No Workbench

It’s hard to make a workbench when you don’t already have one. So I used milk crates. I still use them to this day for holding my milk. (Kidding.)

The slab moved out to the porch, up on two milk crates, and that’s where the rest of the build happened.

The rough slab sitting on two black milk crates on an apartment porch. — The porch shop: two milk crates and one slab.

A glued-up slab isn’t flat. Every board sits a hair higher or lower than its neighbor. The No. 5 knocks the high spots down until the whole thing reads as one surface.

The No. 5 jack plane on the slab, surrounded by curls of shavings. — Flattening the top with the No. 5.

When the shavings start coming off long and curly like this, you’re getting close.

A hand holding a long, curly shaving over the bench top. — Proof of progress.

The Legs

The legs started as four blanks, cut with a Japanese pull saw.

Four leg blanks lined up across the slab, with a Japanese pull saw beside them. — Four legs, waiting their turn.

Each leg gets a round tenon on top. I worked them down until they fit a test hole drilled in a scrap, so I’d know they’d fit the real ones.

A leg clamped upright with its round tenon poking through a scrap board that has a test hole drilled in it, tools and shavings all around. — Sizing a tenon. The scrap with the hole is the gauge.

Then four holes through the top, drilled at an angle so the legs splay out.

The bench slab on the porch with two angled holes bored through one end. — Holes in the top. No going back now.

First dry fit, upside down on a milk crate. The legs are still long here; they got cut to length after.

The slab upside down on a milk crate with long, splayed legs sticking up out of it. — Dry fit. It looks like a bug on its back.

Wedging the Legs

Each tenon got a saw kerf down the middle.

Close-up of a round tenon with a saw kerf cut down its center. — The kerf. The wedge goes here.

Glue on the wedge, tap it into the kerf, and it spreads the tenon tight in its hole. Then saw it all flush with the top.

A Japanese saw lying flat on the bench top next to a wedged tenon being cut flush. — Cutting a wedged tenon flush.

There’s one rule. The kerf runs across the grain of the top. Turn it the other way and you’ve built a log splitter.

Diagram of wedging a round through-tenon in three steps: saw a kerf, drive a glued wedge, saw it flush. A top view shows the wedge must run across the grain of the top, or it splits the top. — Across the grain, every time.

Done

The lumber came home on July 19, 2022. The bench stood on its own four legs on July 29. The book says you can build one of these in a couple of days. My phone says ten.

The finished low Roman workbench on the porch at night, with two hand planes and a mallet on top. — Done, late on July 29, 2022.

The next day, I put linseed oil on it. My dad stopped by to see how I was doing, and I was proud to show off my good work.

Adam's dad in a camo cap, sitting in a recliner with a drink, on the day the bench got its linseed oil. — Dad, stopping by on oil day.

Here it is the next morning, oiled and in the daylight.

The finished bench in morning light on the porch, trees behind the railing. — Morning light.

Breaking It In

Turns out a low Roman workbench also makes a fine lunch table.

A slice of pepperoni pizza on a blue-rimmed plate and an orange water bottle on the bench top. — Pepperoni on a Roman workbench. Seems right.

Then I started adding to it. First, a vise.

The bench with a wooden vise jaw and green vise hardware mounted at one end. — Vise installed.

The porch got string lights, and the bench got its glamour shot.

The bench and its vise on the porch at dusk under a string of warm lights. — Glamour shot.

Then a holdfast. Drop it in a hole, give it a whack with a mallet, and it pins the board to the bench. Whack it from behind and it lets go.

A holdfast pinning a board to the bench top, with a pencil nearby. — The holdfast, holding fast.

By November, it looked like this.

Overhead view of the bench covered in tools: chisels in a wooden box, hand planes, clamps, a saw and a bottle of glue. — November 2022. Fully moved in.

The Supervisor

None of this happened without supervision. Oliver oversaw the entire project.

Oliver, an orange cat, asleep on a red blanket by a window. — Oliver, project supervisor, on the job.

Where It Is Now

The bench lives on the front porch of my new house now. It’s my sittin’ bench, and I still use it once in a while when I need a low bench. The book says these benches double as seating. It’s right.

The low Roman workbench today, now a deep honey brown, sitting on the front porch of Adam's house. — Four years later, the color of an old saddle.

Not bad for a pile of $5.98 studs and a couple of milk crates.

Up Next

As a teaser, here’s the bench I use now. I built that one too, and that build is coming in a future post.

Adam's current workbench, a full-height bench with lumber stacked on the shelf underneath, in his shop. — My current bench, in the shop.

Spoiler: it’s not low.