The Humble Bench Hook

Industrial Arts was probably the one class I most looked forward to at 12 years old. Where I grew up, Junior High – Middle School as they call it here in New Jersey - encompassed grades 7 through 9. Along with the feeling of accomplishment at moving up to a new school came the interest in classes we only heard of until now.

Of course I.A., as we came to know it, involved more than just woodworking. After waiting patiently through the pottery unit, I salivated over the tools as we moved up to the woodshop. With visions of cool projects streaming through my head I discovered, much to my complete disappointment, that our first assignment was to build a bench hook. A bench hook! What the hell is a bench hook?

Many years later I did finally learn the importance of a good bench hook. It really is one of the more important tools in a woodworker’s arsenal but is often overlooked and sadly replaced by complicated and expensive clamping innovations. Norm Abram can’t show off his fancy new Delta bench hook with a bubinga base and titanium, micro-adjustable fence because you can’t buy one in a store. They aren’t discussed on the internet, or in magazines or books, thus few are aware of their importance and utility. You see, a bench hook is one tool that will simplify your woodworking and won’t cost you anything, but you have to make it yourself.

So what DO you do with a bench hook? A bench hook is essentially a crosscutting jig for a hand saw. It allows you to hold the work firmly without the need of setting a clamp, and it protects the woodworker’s number one tool – the workbench. No bench should be without one. The scars on my bench top are reminders that I should have taken my Junior High teacher a bit more seriously, sooner.

While the bench hook excels at holding work for crosscutting, it also excels at holding small stock and dowels. Its most important function is probably in the hand cutting of tenons. By hand, you balk? Oh yes, by hand. Tenons are faster to cut by hand than by any other method. Of course if you are doing a kitchen full of doors with mortise and tenon joinery (I don’t rely on those rail and stile router bit sets any more), a tenon jig on the table saw will out perform the handsaw. However, if I were building a single table apron with eight sets of mortise and tenon joints, after laying out the cuts – which you should do whether cutting by hand or machine – I think I could hand cut the tenons faster than I could get the tenonning jig set up on the saw. It follows then that the bench hook is also useful for certain hand planing activities: surfacing small parts, or using a shoulder plane to clean up the cheeks and shoulders of a tenon.

The best feature of the bench hook is that it helps you saw more accurately. I spent some time trying to figure out why cuts were often straighter and cleaner with a bench hook than without and I think I have the answer. When you use it, you direct most of your weight into pushing down and forwards so that the bench hook stays hooked to your workbench and the work piece stays firmly against its fence. This frees up your sawing arm so you aren’t putting too much force into cutting with the saw. Have you ever heard the old saying, "let the saw do the work?" We all have, and that is because people who aren’t skilled with saws put their weight into the saw and push too hard, causing the saw to jam in the kerf. You really do cut straighter, with less effort, if you keep your elbow in line with the saw and let the saw cut. Placing your weight against the bench hook allows you to move your sawing arm more fluidly so that the saw does do the work and you just have to guide it.

The construction of a bench hook couldn’t be easier. The dimensions are not important as the size basically depends on the scrap you have at hand, and your personal preference. I built a new one for the sake of this article and the base for it is approximately eight inches by ten. I selected a scrap piece of mahogany that came from a panel I once glued up, the remainder having long since been incorporated into other projects. Even though there is a small split in one end and some funky grain that tends to tear out rather easily, it is square and a good size for a bench hook without any further alteration.

If you need a larger, deeper hook for wider boards, just select a larger piece of wood for the base. Many woodworkers have several bench hooks. For longer stock, make a really wide one, then cut it in half on the table saw. This yields two hooks with fences the exact same distance from the edge of the bench. Set them on the bench spaced apart and you will be able to support quite a long piece of wood.

Once I selected my base, I chose a piece of scrap cherry that was one inch by one inch in cross-section and a couple feet long. It was milled four-square at one time and was still straight and square. My base was around eight inches wide so I cut two strips of cherry that were about an inch less than that for the fences or hooks. Those three parts are basically all that there is to the bench hook.

One at a time, I used yellow carpenter’s glue to glue each of the cherry strips to my base. The first was glued and clamped flush with the top and the left-hand edge of the base. This, of course, leaves a gap on the right. I am right handed so the gap is on the right. If you are left-handed, leave the gap on the left. The point is that the fence should not extend all the way to the side of the base you saw on. That will defeat the purpose of the bench hook entirely. You want to saw directly over the bench hook base, not the workbench, so that when the saw goes through the work piece, it hits the hook, protecting the bench. Once that fence was dry, I flipped the bench hook over and glued and clamped the second fence in place. Again it was flush with the top and the left-hand edge. Once the second fence was in place, I moved on to reinforcing the cherry strips.

To increase the strength of the fences, I pinned them in place with pieces of 3/8ths inch dowel that I quickly cut to rough length on the bandsaw. I placed the bench hook on a scrap piece of plywood and then on the table of the drill press. Using a 3/8ths inch brad point bit, I drilled several holes completely through the fence and base of the bench hook, for both fences. Again using yellow carpenter’s glue, I glued lengths of 3/8ths inch dowel in each of the holes. I know it doesn’t take into account wood movement, but it should last a long time. Besides, it worked for Jim Kingshott, as described in his book The Workshop, so it should work for me.

Once the glue had set, I used a hand plane to level off the protruding bits of dowel and do any other cleanup that was required. I scraped the surfaces smooth with a cabinet scraper then sanded to 220 grit. A couple of coats of paste wax for protection and the project was complete.

This bench hook should last me a long time, and why not? It is a tool, like any other, and should be taken care of. I used hardwoods specifically because I want it to last. There are also no screws or brads to dull your blade on. This is important because your hand saw should never come into contact with anything other than wood (and that includes plastic eavestrough material – another long story on handsaws and lending tools). I am especially careful of this as my Lie-Nielsen tenon saw is worth $175 so I won’t risk cutting over anything that has metal in it. Build it well, and it will give you years of stalwart service. If you wonder why I have bothered with all of this, then build a bench hook and try it out. You won’t wonder for long.