I Finally Stopped Overthinking and Just Built It
April 13, 2026 · 10 min · 7k views
Mark 0 is the workbench for my tiny workshop: simple, sturdy and built for every hobby. The top is two sheets of plywood laminated together, and the frame is laminated 2x4s that slot together and hold with glue alone. There's a plywood lower shelf, a vise built into the frame and the top, a few dog holes on one side, and adjustable feet with hidden wheels, so I can roll it when I need to and drop it when I want it rock solid. The legs are black and the edging is red-toned hardwood. It's called Mark 0 because it's not the final form.
Months of overthinking
I spent a year building projects on flimsy, cheap tables. Building the bench was never the problem. Choosing which bench was. Look into workbenches and you fall down a rabbit hole: the Roubo, the Anarchist bench, Japanese low benches, hardwood altars that take three months and weigh more than a car. I watched people build gorgeous ones and somehow decided my first bench had to be one of those. And my own design, with no CAD skills whatsoever.
So I watched hours of videos, compared joinery, drew countless sketches, checked wood species. And I built nothing, because deep down I didn't think I could.
I also solder electronics, want to try sculpting and leatherworking, and don't have room for five setups. What I actually needed was a stable table, and somehow that turned into a philosophical crisis.
Constraints
What changed was that I stopped designing the perfect bench and set constraints instead: sturdy enough to plane a board without it moving, simple enough to finish in a week or two, flexible enough for whatever I'm doing that day, expandable, and nice to look at. Once I accepted that, the design was obvious.
I taught myself Fusion in a week (and made a video about that). In hindsight that was a more sophisticated way to overthink, but it worked. By the time I was cutting wood, I knew exactly what to cut.
The build
It mostly went smoothly, except for the pocket screws holding the top to the frame. The first batch didn't hold, then the screw heads stripped, and I pulled them out with pincers. A better, simpler jig fixed it. Pocket screws were still the right call, because that top will take a beating and I want to swap it later. I do wish I'd bought a quick-release vise, but this one will do.
Rock solid
CAD earned its keep: designing the whole thing first meant the build took days instead of months. Woodworking-wise, this was my first laminated top, my first glue-only slotted frame, and my first vise install. And the thing I overthought for months turned out to be a sturdy table.
The first time I planed a board on it, it didn't move at all, not even a wobble. Pure bliss. It's been the heart of the workshop for a couple of months now, and it looks great on camera too.
What went into it
- Two 18 mm plywood sheets laminated for the top, a 10 mm sheet for the lower shelf
- Months of overthinking, a few days of building
Watch it
Watch the full build on YouTube.
Gear and links
Resources (contains affiliate links):