The Blum Tool Company’s Bench Horse™ “original” is an 18″ × 48″ portable workbench designed for easy setup (“…less than 15 seconds!”). Weighing in at 55 pounds, this workbench can be used as a jobsite bench or a storable main bench in your small shop.
Its torsion-box top, constructed of ½” baltic birch plywood, has holes for ordinary pipe clamps (e.g., Pony #50 or #56 clamp fixtures for threaded ¾” black pipe) bored every 6″ on all sides so you can insert a pipe clamp through to the other side and create vise locations just about wherever you want. There are also two rows of dog holes along each long edge of the top.
The bench’s legs, tubular steel with adjustable levelers, do not protrude when folded up, as shown above. A small accessory tool box ($24), which can be used for storing bench dogs, vise blocks, or small tools, fits into the bottom recess shown on the right in the picture above, and is secured by two turn buttons.
The Blum Bench Horse “original” costs $369 (two bench dogs are included). Available accessories, in addition to the small tool box, include ¾” hardwood dowel bench dogs ($4.50 ea.), vise block and bench dog ($25), and an end vise pipe and pin ($25; a threaded 18″-long ¾” black pipe with holes for a locking pin; used with the pipe clamp vise block for clamping boards between bench dogs). A video on the Blum Tool web site shows general operation and use of the bench and accessories.
If the original is too big, you can get the Bench Horse™ “pony” (13-½” × 36″; 31-½” H; 38 pounds; $199); if the original is too small, you can get the Bench Horse™ “plus” (24″ × 60″; 35″ H; ¾” baltic birch; 100 pounds; $599).
Various web sites on blogs give Blum Tools very good to excellent reviews, so I expect that Bench Horse™ will be high quality. Is it worth the price? Does it give you ideas on building your own? Let us know in comments.
Portable Workbench [Manufacturer's Site]
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9 Responses to Hot Or Not: Blum Bench Horse
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Thanks for the pictures- with the $5 folding table legs from Habitat for Humanity store and some scraps from the shop I will have a great job-site work bench. Even if I bought premium hardwood and ply I couldn’t get close to this price! Besides- job-site benches get beat up and abused- at this price point it’s more valuable than many pro-grade power tools.
I have a pretty sturdy folding table that I bought used for $5. Takes up less space than a single sawhorse, and can take me standing on it (no mean feat!) This one’s pretty and has neat holes for clamps, but….
too rich for my blood, but I could definitely see getting a folding table leg set and building one…
I work in a scenery fab shop and from time to time things like this will be brought up for discussion on should we get it or can we make it? In this case we just bored out some holes on scrap and tacked them on the sides of our benches and road boxes for a particular project. Never used them again. Might as well get a Festool worktable for that cost.
Nice concept, But way too expensive. This would be great for shows, and onsite small jobs…….Maybe $100 to build a nice one….
ShopMonger
I agree with the group on the cost aspect, but quite aside from that does this look top heavy to anyone else? Not so much in lbs., but with those little spindly legs and tiny feet I don’t think I would be willing to but oomph into working anything that was attached to this bench.
I’ll agree with the people that say it is expensive, but remember guys you get what you pay for. In this case, it’s a superior bench geared more toward the fine woodworker. I have read some articles about it before, and for the people like myself who are in too small of a space to build a dedicated woodworking bench, this is a great option. I have also heard that the customer service from Blum is the absolute cream of the crop. Also, this is a Torsion box construction (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torsion_box ), meaning that it will be much more solid than regular plywood. I say HOT!
Note: I don’t work for Blum.
Isnt it kinda big for a birdhouse??
Pretty cool, too expensive for me. I like my portable tables to cost less than my table saw. Certainly a great design idea though. I just might build one. Make some wooden folding legs, maybe a removable bottom that doubles as a shelf…