Building the Portable Moravian Workbench with Will Myers

This 2-DVD video is for hand tool aficionados. Everything is done with hand tools.Will Myers narrates and demonstrates every step of the build process including the impressive assembly which takes less than ONE MINUTE. It was the compact portability and rapid set-up time that interested me in this design. Had I not seen that short video on YouTube I would have not known about this bench or its features. Because of that YouTube video I bought the DVD.Will Myers is an accomplished woodworker. He is obviously skilled and knowledgeable. If you can tolerate his southern drawl and camera shy nervousness, he is actually rather pleasant to watch and hear. At some points his accent is SO thick I could not even understand what he meant. Single syllable words become two syllables: “Built” becomes “Bee-ilt.” At several points, I had to rewind and listen twice.Despite the distracting accent and nervousness, Will’s humble honest personality shines through. He ably demonstrates good technique with saws, planes and chisels. If you are new to woodworking with hand tools, he is an exemplar nonpareil. He also seems like the kind of guy I’d be happy to buy a beer and “See-it day-own to jaw-bone with some.”The videography is good. Lighting and close-ups show pencil lines clearly. Camera angles reveal all marking, cutting and detailing well. If you already know woodworking, then most of this will be understandable. If you are new to woodworking, especially with hand tools, some of the methods demonstrated here will seem mysterious. Neither Will nor the editors made much effort to explain exactly why he does things the way he does. That’s no problem for a fifty year veteran woodworker like me, but tyros may get confused at points.The pace is s-l-o-w… too slow for my tastes. In this modern age, it is virtually criminal to waste people’s time like this. After all, TIME is the only commodity we have in LIFE. I suppose it is necessary to show some things in real time for clarity. Yet there are many times during this tediously l-o-n-g presentation where a concise explanation and some graphics would have been far more beneficial. This DVD could be half or one quarter the length yet far more illustrative and comprehensible. If it weren’t for the annoying music in most scenes, I would have fallen asleep many times. Some may find this pace relaxing. Impatience has always been a problem for me.If you can manage to watch the entire thing and take some notes as you go, you will be able to scale plans to fit your needs. Thanks to Will’s kindly comments on my original review, I learned that there ARE plans included with this DVD. Until he contacted me, I did not know that! So, I must add another star in my rating to reflect that.At no point in this DVD do they offer any suggestions for faster methods. There is no mention of alternative designs for the leg vise which make it far easier and faster to build. There is no mention of upgrades either. There seems to be an unspoken prejudice against “store-bought” solutions, with the exception of the large wooden screw, which is needlessly expensive to buy.They never mention using a standard steel bench screw or show that as an option. A high-quality steel screw from Lee Valley is only about thirty-five bucks, as opposed to a wooden screw which costs substantially more. For that matter, you can make a sturdy leg-vise from scaffold-leveling screws which are available at any home center for less than a cheap dinner.They especially overlook faster easier ways to make many of these joints with power tools. Even if one wants to practice hand-tool joinery, I submit that planing large surfaces by hand is one of the most labor intensive processes any woodworker can do. I would MUCH prefer to send large boards through a planer, even if I had to rent one. If limited to portable hand-held power tools, a power planer would be several times more efficient. Of course, if you want the exercise, then planing big boards for a bench guarantees a workout!Again, there is an unspoken bias against power tools inherent in this presentation. At almost every stage I see opportunities for accelerating the build without compromising any of the features, functionality or appearance of this bench.Since I grew up in a violin shop and have been using hand tools for fifty years, I understand how using hand tools is sometimes the best and fastest way of doing things. However, any experienced woodworker will immediately see opportunities for building this bench much faster by including a table-saw, circular saw, jig saw, router and power drills. This bench could be built in a day easily, if only we used faster methods.So, overall, this is a well produced DVD because of its good camera work, reasonable editing and Will’s excellent craftsmanship.It ignores alternative methods with power tools, or cheaper faster hardware options. Those you will need to parse yourself.Yes, some people prefer working solely with hand tools, and I respect that. Others, like me, have done enough hard hand-tool labor for one lifetime. I still use all my hand tools when that's faster or safer or necessary, but for anything larger than a breadbox, electricity is my friend.The “last straw” that makes this intolerable for me to watch is the hideous music. I can tolerate short snippets of bad, out-of-tune recorders. But in this production, they used the SAME AWFUL BORING OUT OF TUNE music throughout. Maybe they were just trying to avoid copyright problems by using local "talent."This is slow as it is. The music makes it PROLONGED TORTURE to anyone with a musical ear. Non musicians or those who are tone-deaf might not be so irritated.If you are a fan of working wood solely with hand tools and want a clever portable bench design, this is the DVD to get. If you are annoyed by repetitive out-of-tune music, be prepared to hit the mute button constantly. If you want the smart portable bench but prefer to use modern methods, you are on your own.

I purchased this DVD because of my Moravian ancestry and that my grandfathers were traditional carpenters. Myers' attention to details is amazing, even talking about the tools to use or can be used. I know that I will be building this bench when I get some time. I think that this bench will give me an extra connection to my past!

I really like the idea of the Moravian WB and it fits perfectly into my small shop. My "C" rating is based upon the following (Note: I believe that Will is a knowledgeable craftsman and not an experienced presenter) 1. I believe that this DVD did not understand or identify the target audience. Granted, Underhill's school is a traditional hand tool school, however, when I buy a project DVD I just want to know how to build the thing in an efficient way. As an professional woodworker, I could see how to efficiently do each task ( that does not include laboriously hand sawing white oak); 2. The drawing set is woefully lacking, e.g., there are no drawings for the legs showing joinery locations, same for the vice parts, dimensions on the main drawing do not account for leg shew (you have to get this from verbal dimensions mentioned on the video), 3. There is an irony in that one could presume that the customer may not have a workbench or vise, yet the entire DVD uses a workbench and vise .. chicken and the egg..My Moravian workbench is complete and in service. I highly recommend this workbench for its portability and sturdiness. However, If I were to build another, since everything is laminated, I would cut all the joinery as dados prior to lamination and save a whole bunch of time and effort with good, clean results. If you are going to buy the lead screw from Lake Erie Toolworks, be advised that the lead time is 3-4 weeks. You might want to order that at the beginning of your project.

The Moravian workbench is quite attractive to a beginning woodworker. It's design is substantial enough to withstand real work, but it can be taken down and moved by one person. The instruction given on this DVD is very good. It orders the building process, very exactly, saving a beginner unending frustration. There is nothing wrong with the presentation or with the production values of the DVD set. I have only two objections. The *.pdf drawings that appear in the computer files of the second disk should, in my opinion, be more completely dimensioned. I'm sure that every experienced woodworker knows how big a hole to drill for a "dawg," but I don't. So, I'd expect to look at the drawing and see the hole size listed. Also, the layout distances given on the drawing have to be adjusted for the trigonometry of a splayed leg. The real dimensions are given in the lecture but not written in the drawing. That is inconvenient. Finally, some several steps for possible gluing up and milling operations are relegated to a web site. I don't always have a convenient internet connection. I'd like all the information to be self-contained on the DVD. Anyone who is a reasonably decent woodworker will find all (s)he needs on the product as it stands. Beginnings might be slightly inconvenienced by the need to look around for details. The inconvenience is slight, I think. A person would have to be pretty grumpy to complain about this DVD set. I know of no other workbench that is of this quality and still actually portable. It's great. If it weren't great, I don't think Roy Undersell would be part of the process.