All,
It's due time I upgraded my 3 year old "temporary" 2x4 and MDF workbench. Long story short, I bought my old bench top when I visited my old place a few months ago. The top is 3" thick maple and has a Veritas twin screw vise and a QR face vise. The top was designed, built, and used by an old friend of mine before I inherited it. So the top is all together and I don't plan on changing the location of the vises or anything, and the base is what I need to start on. The bench will also be used as an outfeed table of my TS and the height will match (-1/16" or so), due to the size of my shop I can't have a stand along bench.
My design is heavily based on Chris Schwarz's version of the Holtzapffel bench. I'll use his technique of bolting the M&T joint so it's knock down, though I didn't show it in the design. I'm planning on some kind of floating tenon to attach the top to the base (without glue) and use the mass of the top to keep it intact. Also not shown, I included a top stretcher to tie the top of the leg sections together instead of relying completely on the top (figured it would be easier putting the top on if I have to wrestle it on myself too). I went ahead and bought some 8/4 Ash for the base and it's acclimating now.
The main thing I'm not sure about is the sliding deadman - The bench obviously isn't very long and the deadman might not be necessary but I thought it could come in handy so why not put it in. Also, I thought if I ever did decide to make another top and make it bigger, I could reuse the base and the deadman would be even more handy.
Any suggestions or comments on putting in a shelf? Any other comments?
Thanks