Workbench guide
How high a woodworking bench should be, and the vises that hold the work. Bench height has no standard, so the rules here are the ones woodworking publishers give, each named, and they work from your own body. To work out a height for yourself, use the workbench height calculator.
How high a work bench should be
All-round work: at your hand
Stand in your shop shoes with your arms hanging at your sides: the top goes at your hand. Woodcraft measures to the crease of the wrist; The English Woodworker to the underside of the palm, flexed flat.
Traditional rule, stated by Woodcraft and The English Woodworker
Hand planing: lower
Heavy hand planing goes better on a lower bench, where you can put your weight behind the plane: no higher than your hand measure, and lower suits some.
Traditional rule, stated by The English Woodworker, Woodsmith and Popular Woodworking
Detail and joinery: higher, up to the elbow
Detailed work such as cutting joinery, dovetails and routing small parts goes better higher, closer to the eye: above your hand measure and up to just below your standing elbow.
Traditional rule, stated by Woodsmith, The English Woodworker and Woodcraft
Most benches stand in the low to high 30s of inches: Woodcraft says most are 32–38 in; The English Woodworker calls 34–36 in the usual height, with low benches at 29–30 in and tall ones at 38–39 in.
Two sources: Woodcraft and The English Woodworker , sources [1, 2]
No one height suits every task: a bench at a good planing height is low for assembly or detailed work, and one for detail work is high for planing.
Traditional rule: Woodsmith, The English Woodworker and Woodcraft , sources [3, 2, 1]
Sources
Vises
A face (front) vise mounts on the long front edge of the bench and does most of the holding: boards for sawing, planing an edge, drilling.
An end or tail vise is built into the end of the bench and holds work flat on the top, squeezed between bench dogs.
Sources
What this guide does not give
Top thickness and bench sizes are not given here: the one publisher we found that states them (Woodcraft, for store-bought benches) is not enough to give you a number. Bench plans are not our product either.
A bench is shop furniture, and the same body measurements decide its height as decide a desk's or a counter's; the usual heights of those are in furniture dimensions.