About 4 years ago I built the "24 Hour Workbench" from Popular Woodworking. It was an OK workbench but a little small an my choice of front vises was poor. Also my top wasn't very flat and since it was 3" of Baltic Birch it would have been hard on my tools to flatten. Then last winter I took a dovetail class with Chris Schwarz and bought his book as a result. Then our club had a presentation on benches. As a result I decided to build a new bench or at least make some improvements to mine. A few weeks later found a maple bench top on Craigslist.
The bench top was 8' x 30". Since I wanted a 72" x 24" bench due to the space I wanted it to fit into, I cut it down, saving a 24"x30" piece for a future butcher cart for our kitchen. A number of people suggested that my existing base was probably adequate. I added a 6" apron to the front and right end of the top and mounted it to the old base, after cutting a shoulder on the front legs so that they would be in the same plane as the aprons. At some point I'll add dog/holdfast holes to the apron and legs as needed. The front apron is glued, with a couple Dominos used for alignment. The end apron is just lag bolted in place, with a couple Dominos for alignment, to allow for movement. The holes for the lag bolts were slotted. The front corner is a gian box joing with a wedged dowel for reinforcent and was inspired by the one on Steve Sawyer's bench. The base is Southern Yellow Pine construction lumber. It has the Lee Valley bench bolts holding the long stretchers to leg assemblies which has been very solid.
For an end vise I reused a Record vise I bought back when Big Lots was clearing them out. It worked well as the end vise on my old bench so I kept it for this incarnation. For the front vise, I decided a twin screw would be best for me. I decided I didn't want to spend the $200 for the Veritas so I just bought two screws from Lee Valley and made my own twin screw minus the connecting chain. This isn't any different from the also-popular twin wood screw designs so I figured the chain wasn't worth $120 extra to me. I still want to add a dog holes so that I can clamp a door or rectangular panel at that end of the bench.
For dogs, I already had two of the Veritas bench pups. They've always worked well for me so I have two more on the way so that I'll have four to use in the dog holes to be added to the face vise. I've also got a pair of the Gramercy holdfasts on the way. I've seen a friend's in action and can't wait to get a pair of my own.
I mostly finished the bench up tonight by flattening the top. I'm debating on adding a shelf underneath. I don't really need more storage, but I'm thinking it might be useful for storing things I'll need at the bench as well as parts of projects that are in progress.
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