Tell me about your bench. Where did the plans come from? How thick is the top and made of what wood?
My shop is a brand new SUV garage. Wired for 30-amp 220. My wall-mounted benches (all 18-feet of them) are almost up. Then I build two wall tool cabinets, and order will prevail.
I'd like to hear about your bench. And see photos, if you have them.
I don't have a digital camera. After 13 months, I am still moving into this place.
Gary Curtis
My bench is a funny story (to me, anyway). I was at our WW club's annual BBQ at Higgin's, a local lumber yard, last June where they clear out pallet loads of what they consider junk wood to us lowly hobbyists. Well this time around they had a pallet of what they called "Maple Rippings". These were sticks of 10/4 and 12/4 maple about 12' long. The pallet had at least 200 sticks on it. Well after hemming around with the guy, I had a price I could live with. He started with a buck a stick, which was a GREAT deal ... and I whined about maybe not being able to use all 200 of 'em and he said "Tell ya what ... hunnerd bucks for all of it" ... Well I was born at night, but I knew not to pass this one up
While I'm loading up my trailer with these maple strips, a very good friend of mine walks up and asks how much ... when I told him, i'd had about 40% of the sticks loaded and was becoming worried about my little humble trailer. He hands me $80 and takes the rest (about 120 or so sticks). I later sold 20 of my sticks for a buck apiece - so the remaining 60-65 pieces were free
(Stealth gloat, anyone?)
Anyway - I glued up the top with the best pieces I had. At this moment it's about 2 1/4" thick. I got the LN #62 to flatten things a bit better and I may lose 1/16" or so overall. I drew up the plans myself using Sketchup. My shop is microscopic and I have to be very space concious. I only have 8' by 23' and I have all the machines (ts, bs, 8" jointer, planer, 60gal air compressor, etc etc) so the bench needed a few custom dimensions.
The top is about 74" by ~25" and it should be pretty sturdy for me. It alone weighs almost 150lbs. The base is made up of 3" square boards I laminated from my stash of maple and some 4"x1.5" planks for crossmembers. I have a few pictures of the glue-up here:
http://familywoodworking.org/forums/showpost.php?p=28091&postcount=30
I went light on vises for the time being since I seem to be teetering on the edge of going from power to hand tools and I want to get my hands on a few other vise styles before I commit to something. For the time being, I have a 9" front vise from HF that I'll probably skin with some 8/4 maple (the only wood i'll pay for on the bench
) at this year's BBQ.
At some point I will probably build an insert to go in the base of the bench with some drawers or shelves for some of the oft-used things like squares and calipers. Maybe a set of handheld powertool cubbies. That part's still up in the air.
I'm in the middle of drywalling my shop now and the finished bench is kinda burried. The space is a very old garage, apparently predating squares and any kind of 16" increments. Adding framing, insulation and drywall is enough work. Nevermind having to move all the tools around for each 8' span, running new electrical. After that it's all dust collection and possibly compressed air. As soon as the shop's redone, I'll take tons of pics, though
It's coming along ... but man i miss working IN the shop instead of ON it.