Well all, after months of agonizing, The final workbench design is orbiting toward completion. In honor of one of those other tools everybody agonizes over but nobody can do without (math, or more specifically, the the calculus), I think I'll name it The The Bench.
So I'm liking the Veritas/Charelsworth style, but with symetric front and back surfaces since I use my bench against a wall the short way (i.e stuck out into the room the long way). I need storage below the bench since I'm in half of a one car garage. Basically, a Veritas Modern, but with removable center tool tray and storage underneath and wider/thicker slabs. (and yes, I've done overwhelming large, maple glue ups before) Closest one to what I'm thinking I can find on the web is the Highland House bench (the yuppie, cherry one)
I think the final design is going to have two 3" thick, 7ft x 12" maple slabs with a 6 to 8" gap between those which will be the remvable tool tray. This 'd give me a 32" wide surface which should be about right. I use it also as an assembly table, so I'm thinking the wider surface will be good. Front vise oriented right handed on one side, pattern makers vise oriented left handed on the other side (I won't add this until later, probably).
I thought about all kinds of crazy double, idependent tail vise designs but I think the twin screw end vise will give me 85% of what I need without driving me batty. Because of crazy space requirements, I'll have to build everything in stages, the base stretchers, first, then one of the two tops, then storage and the other top.
Questions:
How wide / deep a center tool tray is prudent?
How much gap do you think is good between the bottom of the slabs and the top of the storage is I'm using a holdfast? (I guess the question is how much do these stick out below the top when in use)
How thick a top can I get away with when using a twin screw end vise? I'll still need a cross piece backer to span the ends of the slabs, but how low can the screw centers be below the plane of the bench top before I run into problems?
-Matthew