New workbench

[Lawrence Tarnoff]

I'm moving my shop from a single-bay garage to the adjacent two-bay and I will finally have room for a proper bench. I have some 8/4 x 6" reclaimed cherry in sufficient quantity for a 7'x2' top, legs and stringers. I'm thinking of a set of parallel dog holes spaced every six inches along the length, a shallow well running the back length and vices at left front and right side. A couple of questions:

4-5 coats of oil-based semi-gloss poly for the finish. Other suggestions?
Sourcing for reasonably priced vice mechanisms?
Any other thoughts, suggestions will be appreciated.


Thanks!

Larry

[Brian Tymchak]

I'm moving my shop from a single-bay garage to the adjacent two-bay and I will finally have room for a proper bench. I have some 8/4 x 6" reclaimed cherry in sufficient quantity for a 7'x2' top, legs and stringers. I'm thinking of a set of parallel dog holes spaced every six inches along the length, a shallow well running the back length and vices at left front and right side. A couple of questions:

4-5 coats of oil-based semi-gloss poly for the finish. Other suggestions?
Sourcing for reasonably priced vice mechanisms?
Any other thoughts, suggestions will be appreciated.


Thanks!

Larry

Congrats Larry! Building your own bench is a very rewarding project.

Regarding the finish on your bench - I would recommend against using poly on a bench, particularly on the top. In my humble opinion, bench tops should not be slick, and poly will be slick. Also, your bench is going to get dinged and scratched on occasion, and dings on poly finish usually end up looking like a yellow blister where the finish separates from the wood. Particularly if the wood is relatively soft such as Cherry. I would recommend an oil finish such as Danish Oil or Teak oil that have a little varnish in them but not so much as to provide a heavy build. An oil finish is also easier to refresh than poly. I used just 1 coat of Watco Teak oil on my Ash workbench 3 years ago and it is holding up fine. I might have to wipe on another coat on the top only in a few years.

Regarding dog-hole spacing, I would wait until you get your vices to figure out alignment and spacing as you will likely want to run holes aligned with dogs in the vice chops. Also the travel on your vice after adding chops can make a difference in placing dog holes.

When I built my bench, I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to use it, so I put the same vices on that were called for in the plans I used (PWW 21st Century Workbench). The face vice is a Veritas 24" Twin Screw and then a quick-release vice at the tail. Now that I've had the bench for a while, I would actually prefer a quick release vice in the face position and may switch the Twin Screw out for this vice (http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?p=67755&cat=1,41659)from Lee-Valley. I don't know if this meets your definition of reasonably priced though.

Have fun with the bench build!

[John Sanford]

Being a bit of a wood ho, I would probably save that cherry for some furniture projects. It has the advantage of not costing you anything now, but unless I had a steady supply of such, I'd opt for using another wood. I have some Jatoba (Brazilian Cherry) that I was going to use for the base of my bench, but when I saw that it's going for over $10 a bf now, I opted to buy soft maple at less than 4$ a bf. The Jatoba will be better used for a bed.

Hold off on the dogholes until after you have your vises installed. Also, a 6" spacing may be a bit much... depends on how much travel your vises have.

[michael osadchuk]

Decide on the vices you want before you finalize the design of bench.
(I have a long bench: I put two of the smallest Record quick release metal vises on the front and LV twin screw on one end)

Consider ditching the tool well and instead installing a light platform about 8 inches below the bottom of the top as area to stash frequently used tools on a project.

Ditto no hard film finish... a penetrating oil finish (BLO, polymerized tung, danish oil, etc.) is fine to resist stains yet allows easy handplaning the top to return it to dead flatness down the road if required.

If going with normal face vice on front of the bench, sink the inside jaws of the vice flush with the edge of bench so that the bench edge provides support to a long timber being handplaned, etc.

good luck

michael

[Brian Libby]

I also would not use poly on bench top - oil of some type

[Jeff Monson]

I also would not use poly on bench top - oil of some type

Yep, I'll second that advice, I will take a card scraper to mine and maybe sand it lightly, then another coat of BLO. Looks like new again.....doesn't last long though.

[Jim Matthews]

Nothing wrong with having a top made from something you like working with.

Cherry is my favorite wood for furniture, and it's soft enough that it shouldn't ding any project lumber.
I would not, however, apply any finish to the top of a workbench that makes it slippery.

[Lawrence Tarnoff]

Thanks for the tips, folks, especially on the poly. I like Watco natural and that ought to work fine. With respect to vises, I'm leaning toward the large Lee Valley front vise -- http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=31137&cat=1,41659,41661 -- and am still undecided about the side vise, although Lee Valley has a nice offering. Anyone use this vise?

Larry