Wood Magazine Drop Leaf Workbench

[dickey peterson]

Hello, longtime lurker, first time poster.

I'm looking through the "How to Build a Great Home Workshop" by Wood magazine and considering building the drop leaf mobile workbench. I need the flexibility of the mobile bench as I don't have a 100% dedicated space. I have a few questions, probably due to my inexperience.

1. The plans (in fact most of their plans) call for using Birch plywood, which I found at Home Depot. HD also carries what they call "cabinet grade" plywood. What is that exactly. It's about $10 a sheet cheaper than the Birch.

2. For hardwood edging all the Wood plans call for maple. Would poplar work just as well? Would it look as good? Would it be as rugged?

3. The use a vise by "Record" that appears to be discontinued. I found one that is almost identical by Anant and one offered by Rockler. Would these all work equally as well?

Any other insights into this plan would be much appreciated. Anyone built this bench?

[Derek Tuchscherer]

Theoretically you could use any sheetgoods that you want, Cabinet grade would be just fine. And the same goes for the edging, any hardwood. As for the vise, you should be able to use whatever fits your budget for that as well.

Have fun...happy building.
Derek

[Paul Joynes]

You are correct in saying that Record vises are no longer available. The vises shown on the web page link below are equivalent to Record woodworking vises.

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...80&cat=1,41659

Likely the birch ply they were talking about is really "Baltic Birch". This is superior because it is void free and made up of much thinner laminations.

Paul

[Brian Lindenlaub]

It is my understanding that Anant bought the patterns for the Record vises when Record went out of business. I bought the middle-sized Anant recently, and am very happy with it.

[Jamie Buxton]

Some of what my local HD sells is what is often called "multi-ply" around here. It looks like Baltic Birch in that all the interior laminates are the same thickness. There are a lot of laminates -- like 13 in a 3/4" sheet. While true Baltic Birch has birch interior plies, the HD multi-ply stuff has interior plies of something else -- maybe poplar, I can't tell. This multi-ply stuff has some bad characteristics for cabinetry. First, it often warps as you cut it. There's apparently built-in stresses which get released by the cut. Second, it warps just standing around the shop. In this characteristic, it behaves much more like MDF than plywood. All in all, I don't use the stuff.