Trade Secrets: a peninsular bench extension

An absolutely immobile working surface has always been a priority of mine; it can bother me to distraction to feel my physical (and mental) efforts corrupted into moving the bench itself. For this reason, my workbenches have always been positioned along the periphery of workshops – braced against the walls, and often even directly anchored to them. Browsing through ‘My Space’ articles in The Strad shows me that most luthiers have adopted a similar strategy. Recently though, I’ve experimented with my workshop layout by adding a long, narrow table (140cm x 40cm) that extends out into the workshop from one of the wall benches. 

The primary advantage of this ‘peninsula’ is that it gives me the ability to approach clamped work from all three free sides of the table…