New bench in the works...

Hi Monty.
First of all my bench is CHEAP. It is primarily made of a few sheets of 3/4" plywood. I believe it is as strong as and more rigid than a solid hardwood bench and a way easier and faster to build. The base is hammer veneered with Walnut veneer and the top is trimmed with local Arbutus but the bench is plywood …… that’s the best part.
Any of the woods you mention would sub for my Arbutus (you would call it Madrone) but I would strongly recommend looking at my inter-laid plywood construction.
Have you seen the Sketchup?
https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=eac92d1e533271b452d9fc61873164a1

I cut the beam joint on a bandsaw but you could do it with almost anything.

Is there some kind of communal ESP going on or something? Sheesh, I just finished reading every part of Paul’s bench build blog over on lj because I’m also planning a new bench and was looking for vise options. Then I come over here and see Montys post.

I also watched the video of the vises in operation and showed my wife the dog house. She thought the dogs might get hurt while hammering and planing away. LOL

One quick question about the dog holes. I know that you called your hardwood inserts the luxury option, but is there any real difference between that and just drilling the holes through the plywood? Thanks in advance.

One more question. To save a few shekels, can I use cdx or even osb?

I wouldn’t use OSB (Old Sh** Board) but cdx may be OK if it is flat. Starting out with something that isn’t pretty flat will make things more difficult. Not impossible, just more difficult. Often the box store birch is fairly cheap and nice and flat. That would be a good choice. The construction is so strong that flat is really the main issue.

Sorry Brian, I missed your first post. I think the holes may last a little better with smooth hardwood bores but it probably doesn’t make much difference.

BTW, the offer of a marquetry V8 degree logo for anyone who builds the leg vice applies here as well. :-)

That’s a done deal then! I think I’m also going to make a wagon vise but not a wedge clamp. I think I’ll probably retrofit a pipe clamp into it. That’s how we roll in Wantagh. LOL. But definitely wedge leg vise. :-)

Keep me posted.
……. and send me a pic when you get close to finished an I’ll send you a V8 degree logo.

Thanks for the info Paul. The sketch-up is a big help. I understand your reasoning for using plywood, but I don’t think I could cut it as accurately as would be required. I don’t have a band saw, and a recent music stand build gives me pause to try to use the jig saw for anything that requires accuracy. A solid hardwood top will be easier for me (and with the cost of plywood locally, hardwood is 1/3 the cost).
As to the beam joint, I was afraid you would say band saw. I really need to buy one, but I haven’t found the right one for the right price yet. I think I could make the cuts with a pull saw though.
I’ll be using hard maple for the vices. It has the hardness and durability needed, but without the hassle that comes with working with hickory.
This will be a long, drawn out build. I’ll start with the wagon vices so I’ll have some dimensions to work with when the top goes together.
Who knows, maybe I’ll find a band saw in time to make a plywood top.

Actually you can build the plywood bench with nothing but a circular saw, a router and a drill. A table saw makes the rip cuts easier but it isn’t necessary. I built a smaller version of this bench for my winter shop in Az. using only those basic tools so it is doable. Here is a build blog on the smaller one and here is a build blog on the bigger one.
I also used a cheap jig saw and band saw for the vices but the bench can be done with very basic tools.
I feel a bit silly re-posting all my existing stuff here but maybe I should with these blogs.
BTW, by my calculation 3/4" plywood at $40/ sheet is about $1.65 per fbm. If you can but decent hardwood for 1/3 of that price you are very lucky indeed.

Yes, very lucky. Well they ship to N.Y.?

Let’s hold on a second here fellas. You’re almost making it sound like I’m knocking the plywood bench, which I’m not. If you look back, my questions, of which there were two, involved only the wagon vices. I didn’t ask about designing the bench, what to make it out of or how to do it.
I simply saw that Paul used Madrone for the vices, and being that I know nothing about constructing anything with wedges, I thought Madrone was chosen for a particular quality that species offers, above others, beyond availability or aesthetics.
Look, my comment about 1/3 the price was a sarcastic exaggeration brought on by the high cost of decent plywood available to me. I can’t get birch plywood for less than $47 a sheet. I can’t get any decent plywood for less than $47 a sheet.
My bench is not like the one Paul built. My bench is going to be 8 feet long, 32 inches wide and 3 inches thick, with no tool well. I can build that out of solid Ash for $96. Just 3 sheets of plywood would cost me $141. So I guess for 1/3 less is a more accurate statement.
In any event, bench construction wasn’t the question and I don’t know how it ever got to that. As awesome as Paul’s bench is, I don’t want a replica of it. I want my own bench, with Paul’s wedge vices in it.
All I really wanted to know was if Madrone was selected for a particular reason, or would one of my locally available species work as well.
Sorry for any confusion this whole thing might have caused.

Sorry Monty, no offence intended. I just really like the strength and rigidity of the plywood construction I used and may be a little over-zealous in championing it.
Any solid, stable hardwood or even a softwood like D Fir will work fine. I used Arbutus because it is a local “specialty” wood and it has good characteristics.
I am pleased that you like the vices (vises). Let me know if I can be of any help.

If I could find a hard wood cheaper than plywood then I would be all over it. Here in long island there are very few lumber yards left. The closest one to me doesn’t sell rough lumber. Everything is s4s and very expensive. I have to contact some tree cutting companiesto see how to get some rough lumber. I know a few of them mill some of the stuff theytake out of people’s yards but it’s green. Cheap but I don’t have much room to store drying lumber.

Monty if you can get ash at that price then God bless you. I was going to use Douglas fir until Paul started talking about plywood. Birch plywood here is about $55/sheet but I think cdx will work just fine. That would put it in line with the price of your ash but not the quality or beauty of it. Please post pics of your build. I will too when I actually get around to doing it. :)

No harm, no foul. I just thought I would clear that up. I don’t have the bench committed to paper (or sketch-up for that matter) but I can see it in my head. I love the butcher block hardwood look, and I also love the look of Ash. I appreciate the strength and rigidity of interlaced plywood, but it’s just not what I want.
Earlier I said the bench would either be white ash or white oak. Well, after working with white oak for the last few days, I have decided on the ash. White oak is definitely hard, and smells wonderful when it’s cut, but the pores in the edge grain turn me completely off, as does it’s tendency to tear out in the planer.
But, back to the vices…I have decided on hard maple. It’s a bit steep at $3.10 fbm for 4/4 but I won’t need that much. I can probably get 8/4, but it’s not listed on the price list. Hickory is much cheaper at $1.50 fbm, but I really don’t feel like fighting with it. Much of this bench will be built with hand tools and my sharpening skills are not yet well honed…1, 2, 3…

Brian, I buy my KD here. I always look forward to going there. It’s a 45 minute drive along a winding 2-lane road right through the heart of Ohio farm country. The people at Denoon are very friendly. Even though I only buy a few boards at a time, they always treat me like I’m their best customer. I can’t say enough good things about them! I don’t know if they ship or not though. I just love the place.
I currently have a project on the bench (an end table), but once it’s done, I’m starting on the bench. My daughter just closed on a house built in the 1920’s and wants me to do some work on it, so that will eat up a lot of my time (and money probably). I’ll keep a blog of the build as I get it going.

Brian…two questions if you please…first, going with your apparent dilemma of resource shortage, have you considered construction sites (case of beer goes a LONG way, think it’s a universal thing too) or habitat for humanity for supplies? Here in Arizona there is PLENTY of those kind of places around. I cannot speak to where you are at, so I don’t know. Just an idea. Second, when you make your vise holes, assuming…if I’m correct…you glue boards up together, would you cut out your notch before gluing or wait until you have a solid top to work with? What I’m asking is, does it make a difference to cut in the center of a board or on the edge? Or, are you cutting a series of pieces spaced the hole size apart then gluing? Just curious about strength.

For the first, I’ve tried using pallets. They work well but it’s very time consuming and they don’t yield much. I work in construction and every once in a while something useful gets demoed but it’s very difficult to get that stuff home. I’m in long island, NY and work in NYC and take the train. Getting nice lumber at a decent price is tough here.

As to the second part, it would be a lot easier to assemble if you start with a plan that has dimensions and locations for the holes and cutouts. The tighter you can make the pieces fit together the stronger it will be as an assembly. I’m thinking about making the top out of 2×3s with a hardwood veneer. Or maybe I’ll just leave it as plain 2×3s. That’s what my current bench is and it’s heavy and tough as anything. It’s just not as pretty as hardwood.