I built mine a few years ago, and it is great to work with. I saw the plans in a magazine, and it looked simple to build. Consists of a top, two leg panels, and a stretcher panel. All four parts have cores of 2x4s in a grid pattern, and are faced with plywood, glued and screwed. The top has a doghole arrangement across the long front face, and uses a wood handscrew for a tail vise. I outfitted a Record front vise to it. A tool well runs full length along the back.
Has anyone else made one of these? It is a really heavy and stable piece.
Replies
Bob
Not exactly, but close. One of my first work-benches was constructed similar back in the mid 70's. Have built 15 serious one's since and have beefed up my design a bit. I do have an assembly table built similar. And I do think it goes to show that a lot of cheap ways work fine.
My theory goes against the grain somewhat. I believe the base is as or more important than the top. If you chop mortices and especially hand plane, you put tremendous pressure on the base. Enough to make it slide or the joints fail if you don't have a sturdy design down there. The only real requirement of a top are to be flat for hand planing and stable enough for pounding. That can be accomplished in many economical ways other than maple or hard-wood. If it gets scratched or dented, so what. So does a pick-up truck that is used for work. It doesn't decrease the pay-load though and that's the bottom line.
sarge..jt
Proud member of the : "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
With all this talk of making something in a weekend.....I slow smoked a pork shoulder yesterday for ten hours .....applied my special sauce to the shredded remains...chewy rolls...some really fine cole slaw with a hint of garlic...and, just to keep with the season, big slabs of Irish bread with fresh butter for dessert.
None of it was flat, durable, resistent to glue or particularly suitted to heavy pounding.....but it made the mouth water to look at it......lol
BG
Well, you got the cole slaw right. You might experiment with some corn on the cobb (boiled corn to youse guys.. he..) and Boston baked beans with a touch of honey.
Ring the dinner bell when it's ready... :>)
sarge..jtProud member of the : "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
I don't understand the sense of romance and asthetic importance with which some woodworker's place on their workbenches. My 4' x 8' bench is welded tubular steel(pays to know how to do more than work with wood) with two 3/4" pieces of plywood and a 1/4" piece of masonite on top of that. When the masonite gets too banged up, I put a new piece on and pop out the holes for the bench dogs/hold-downs. It has an Emmert patternmaker's vice, a shoulder vice, tail vice, and an adjustable support via pipe clamps for planing a board on end. I added the adjustable support a couple of years ago after getting the idea from a Fine Woodworking article and I don't know how I ever got along without it.
My bench is dead flat, large enough that I can assemble about any project, couldn't be budged with a Sherman tank, and is hideously ugly to look at.
Is it similar to this, http://www.terraclavis.com/bws/benches.htm?
Not at all. Each of the four components, the top, leg pedestals, and stretcher, are stress-skin assemblies, 4-1/2" thick. The core of each assembly is a grid arrangement of 2x4s, spaced about 6" on center, and the skins of 1/2" plywood are glued and screwed to the core frames. The screws for the topside of the benchtop are counterbored and plugged. The leg and stretcher panels go from bottom of benchtop to floor, and each leg panel has a 1/4" thick foot piece screwed to each bottom corner. The core members of the stretcher panel are bored so that a full-length piece of allthread rod runs through and joins the stretcher to the leg panels, with a nut and washer at each end to snug things up tight. A toolwell is built onto the back full length of the top, and its ends and backframe part are extensions of the 2x4 benchtop core. To ensure straightness, I opted for 2x4s my lumberyard ordered for me in LSL (laminated strand lumber) from TrusJoist MacMillan.
It is rock solid, very heavy, and stable. Takes two strong people just to lift the top. Costs about $200 in materials, plus your cost for a front vise and the Jorgensen wood handscrew used for the tail vise.
If you are interested in building it, I still have the mag with the article. Let me know how to mail it, and I can copy the article and plans.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled