Grid Beam is a building technique developed in the 70’s. It is a simple technique which uses perforated square beams, connected by normal furniture bolts. I first learned about the technique from the book How to build with Grid Beam by new society publishers:

how-to-build-with-grid-beam

While the book is more of an history of grid beam, it does have some techniques and discussion on design. I think the technique has huge potential as a reusable building method

In need of a Dirty workbench, I decided to build a ‘stick’ making jig and attempt to build a bench. I was surprised by a few things:

- Beam stability is a function of the species, not the holes


- Hole accuracy is important, but not a deal breaker - the bolts pull the beams together nicely


    - It takes about 20 minutes to drill a 6 foot beam - not including finishing touches like chamfer

Here’s my bench:

Bench

Tri-joint

Leg