Official Luthiers Forum!

I built my first bench using a solid composite door blank that was given to me. it was about 2 1/2" thick and super heavy. I built the frame with scrap 4x4's, 2x4's, and 1/2" ply for the bottom shelf. I had more money in screws than the wood! It's a great utility bench for my belt/disc sander and drill press. So, there's more than one way to "skin a cat".

I've considered building a bench, and looking at the inputs here, I'm very much going to reconsider it. For what it's worth, I went to Harbor Freight and saw the bench in question. It's really not bad-- certainly great for the price, but i agree with the comments that it would certainly benefit from some effort to improve the rigidity.

Todd-- that mount for the SM vice looks really good, but it's hard for me to make out exactly how it's built. Do you have any other pics or even better, a link to the refernced archive material? I can't seem to find it...

As noted in an earlier post, I am currently setting up an interior workspace in a small bedroom. This bench looked like a good candidate, so I decided to give it a try. The bench showed up Friday and I put it together yesterday. All the parts were present and aside from a tiny chip along the edge of one of the drawers, everything was in good shape. Assembly was a simple process that took me about an hour. It's not rock solid, but certainly doesn't feel flimsy. So far my only complaint is that the vise does not work very smoothly. I have other work surfaces in my garage which I can use for heavier and/or dirtier work, so this seems like it's going to be a nice addition for me... and my wife thinks it looks okay, so that's a bonus.

George :-)

My new Binding Bench,
Thanks for the tip guys !!

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Gregg