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Customer Review
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 June 2016It is generally a good, solidly-built work bench but has a few fundamental design flaws that let it down.
The bench stands solidly on it's feet, and feels very sturdy in use. There is no sway or wobble as you will sometimes find with lighter units. It is really quite heavy in use, but I do think this is a trade-off - it is heavy to carry but the weight is useful when sawing or planing as it prevents the bench moving in use. The height adjustment works well, very useful to transition from (say) sawing plywood on a low setting to assembly on a higher setting. I haven't found the angle adjustment very useful as yet, but it does seem to be effective and it retains it's position well. I had no issues with assembly as some other users have found.
However, there are some problems that really should (and could) have been resolved in the design office. The most significant issue is the fact that the positioning of the bench dog holes and the range of screw adjustment means that you can't really clamp something that's about 220mm wide - there are "missing" dog positions in the centre of the bench. Really, someone should be sacked for this, it's not difficult to figure it out! I'm in the process of fixing this by drilling additional holes as soon as I have a forstner bit of a suitable size.
Another problem with the positioning of the bench dog holes is that they aren't all positioned in a line parallel to the clamp face. A workpiece that is about the width of the bench is fine as the two outer sets of holes are parallel. However, with a narrower piece that spans only half the width, it can't be clamped squarely as the centre hole is closer to the clamp face.
The third major problem is that the position of the rear clamp face is almost perfectly in line with the cross-member that spans between the legs. So, if you want to clamp something vertically, say a piece of timber that you want to work on the end of it, it doesn't sit square to the clamp face.
An additional final annoyance is the fact that the screw threads on either side don't offer anywhere near the same resistance to rotation, so you have to consciously rotate them equally to maintain a parallel clamp face.
All in all, good enough for many DIY jobs, but I would probably wait until they eliminate these design flaws in version 2.0 before buying.
