Bench hook
A bench hook is a simple wooden jig that hooks over the front edge of a workbench, giving a board something firm to press or brace against while it is sawn or planed by hand.
Holding the work
For everyday bench sawing, a piece of wood is held either in a vice or braced against a bench hook while it is cut with a back saw, a saw with a stiffened top edge used for accurate joinery cuts. Nicholson (1832) is direct: "The use of the bench hook is to keep the stuff steady, while the joiner, in the act of planing, presses it forward against the bench hook." The same principle carries over to sawing. To crosscut a piece of stock, a bench hook is braced against the bench edge on one side, and its other shoulder stops the workpiece as it is cut. Audels (1923) puts it directly: "the bench hook is placed on the bench, one shoulder being set against the edge of the bench while the upper shoulder serves as a stop for the work while sawing." A bench hook usually pairs with a back saw this way, cradling the workpiece securely while the cut is made.
Sawing accurately
Cutting three saw kerfs, thin slots left by a saw's blade, into the hook's top cleat, the crosspiece it is built around, two angled at 45 degrees and one running square across, turns the cleat into an accurate guide for mitre and square cuts. Small parts can also be lined up on a bench hook by their marked cutting lines and sawn together in one pass with a back saw.
Planing on the hook
Fitted with a thin stop, a bench hook can hold small parts steady while they are planed, and a block plane, a short plane sized for one hand, can bring small fitted parts, called keys, down to their final size while they rest on the hook.
A variant and its origins
A shooting board, a longer version of the same idea used to guide a plane running on its side, is a variant of the bench hook, used for planing the long edges of boards straight and true. One craftsman described by Landis (1987) props up the far end of a long board using a separate board matching the bench hook's own thickness, to keep the workpiece supported while it overhangs the bench, and the same account traces the bench hook's wide use among woodworkers back to the much older Roubo workbench.