When I started woodworking in 2015, I lacked the confidence to make my own workbench. As such, I spent a small fortune and bought one from Lie Nielsen. I've been happy with it with one exception, it's 35" height is lower than I would like; I am 6' tall. Works fine for hand plane work but not so good for cutting fine joinery and dovetails. My back will ache a bit so I often will sit when working. Though I discovered Paul Sellers very early on, it wasn't until a year or three into woodworking I discovered that he recommended a height of 40"; he's 5'10". That is the height he has used for 50+ years and one of the reasons he cites is back issues that can develop from lower benches. LieNielsen must have received enough calls from folks wanting their benches taller in that they had leg extensions you can purchase. In 2018 or 2019 I purchased them; technically LieNielsen provided them for free and I was grateful for that. As part of shop reorganization (a future blog will be about that), I have gotten around to installing the leg extensions.
LieNielsen provided them long so that the end user could cut to desired length. In 1Q23, I took a woodworking class in which I was able to work at a 39" tall bench and I really liked that extra height as compared to my 35" bench at home. Paul Sellers recommended 40" and I'm slightly taller than him. As such, I settled on 41". I will work on it for a while and if I want it lower, I will cut it down in 1/2" increments.
Cutting the legs extensions to length was straightforward though I spent a lot of time checking my measurements as many ways as possible. After carefully and slowly cutting to length, I used a block plane to flush the bottom a bit. I didn't go crazy (it's on the floor after all) but I wanted to make sure there wasn't any weird high spots (there wasn't - in fact it was a great saw job). Then, I put a heavy chamfer as it will be dragged, and I didn't want to fracture the edges.
For the install, my next-door neighbor came over to help tilt the bench and we put the leg extensions in place. Though I only needed his help for about 5 minutes, I greatly appreciated it as it was a bit too much for my wife and I do to by ourselves. From there, I used the offcuts of the leg extensions to make shims to get a tight fit in the plywood "boxing". Then, I clamped in several axis and used the holes in the plywood as guides to drill from both sides through the legs. Then, tightened the carriage bolts.
When all was said and done, it took about half a day's work to do it. I hadn't done it sooner because I knew this would result in moving the low items from the peg board in front of the bench and that would result in a shop reorganization. What little work I've done on it so far (just cutting out the shims) confirmed I like the increased height. Time will tell if 41" is the final number. It definitely is a good place to start with my height of 6'. I know all of the conventional wisdom about knuckle height. I just think that is a bad idea as a starting point and higher is likely better for most people. Plus, it's not that hard to make a bench sorter.
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