Grizzley workbenches ?

[Jeff Monson]

http://www.grizzley.com/products/78-Maple-Workbench/H7721

Does any fellow woodworker out there either own one of these or have seen one at a griz store???

I'd like some feedback on whether its a good sturdy bench and what the quality of the drawers are like.

IMO its hard to build a bench like this with drawers and vice for the money unless its quality is really bad.

[Craig D Peltier]

I touched them 2 months ago in the store. They werent rock solid but they were real sturdy compared to any box store ones. I think there sturdier than woodcrafts.
I found the draws a little tight on the ones I messed with.
If you use alot of hand tools for your work a bench like this is nice. Im the type of guy who likes to buy something already made and not build it if its for work. I like to spend my time making money with actual wood. ... But on the other hand if you have the time and inclination to build one it should beat this one hands down.

[Pat Germain]

Jeff, I don't have any experience with that bench, but I sure learned a lot about workbenches reading Christopher Schwarz's book. I highly recommend it for anyone looking to buy or build a bench. Schwarz provides a lot of great info about what a bench should do and what features might seem positive, but really aren't.

For just over $20, that book can save you a lot of money. It would be a bummer to buy a bench and then figure later out why it doesn't work for you.

http://www.amazon.com/Workbenches-Design-Construction-Popular-Woodworking/dp/1558708405/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209954495&sr=8-1

Or, reading the book might you may feel confident in buying the Grizzly bench.

[Terry Achey]

http://www.grizzley.com/products/78-Maple-Workbench/H7721

Does any fellow woodworker out there either own one of these or have seen one at a griz store???

I'd like some feedback on whether its a good sturdy bench and what the quality of the drawers are like.

IMO its hard to build a bench like this with drawers and vice for the money unless its quality is really bad.

Jeff,
I was at the Grizzly store last month for the first time. Wow! what a store. I was planning to build a table and was at the store (2 hr trip from home) to purchase a list of various tools. After seeing the tables set up in the store I couldn't resist taking one home. I didn't buy the table you listed. I purchased a smaller model that suited my needs just fine. These tables aren't the 400-500lb monsters that you read about, but they are solid and well made. Mine is made from finderjointed solid maple with end and side vises and two drawers. The best part was assembly. We all hate those items that have poor instructions and 1,00o pieces. Well, this puppy assembled in less than an hour with excellent hardware. Only downside was some cheesy cam lock hardware used for assembling the the drawer boxes sides.

Beyond that, for my purposes this table is terrific and I would rate the quality as very good. Not building a workbench saves me alot of time to spend building other more needy projects. Hope this helps.

PS - if you get a chance ya gotta see this store! My wife performed a much needed intervention to get me and the checkbook out of the store just in time:D.

Terry

[Jeffrey Makiel]

I would normally say that you should build one yourself. However, the price of decent hardwood today would probably not make it as cost effective. In addition, one must dedicate time.

One nice thing about building your own bench is that you can have a replaceable top veneer from inexpensive MDF or hardboard. I use my workbench for a lot of things other than woodworking. The top gets messed up with glue, stain, paint, etc. Also, I sometimes screw assembly fixtures to my workbench top. I would hate to do that with a nice hardwood glued-up top.

-Jeff :)

[scott spencer]

I've looked them over at the store before and thought they were well built. I'm afraid shipping will be pretty severe though.

As a more local alternative, our Sam's Club has 72"x25"x1.5" maple benches with a sturdy steel base for $200. A friend grabbed one a year ago and it's a good basic bench that you could expand into a nice wwing bench.

[Peter Quadarella]

Some of you may think I'm nuts, but let me throw this out there:

If you're willing to spend some money on a workbench, there's this one:
http://www.blumtool.com/pages/benchhorse.html

I have two of these. In my small garage workshop I keep one up, and when necessary I clamp the other one to that one in different configurations (really long bench or bigger square one), and they also double as assembly tables. It wouldn't seem it, but these things are extremely sturdy! For face planing when I'm using one I do have to brace it though. There are lots of ways to do this; putting it on a rubber mat with holes in it might work, or anchor it to the floor - I brace it against a wall with a pipe clamp (2x4 with hole in in on wall, 6' pipe clamp from that hole to the workbench hole). When I do this, I cannot move it even if I tried. For edge planing, bracing is unneccesary.

You save money on vices too, since you can use a pipe clamp, or multiple pipe clamps for that purpose. I also use the tail vice adapter for a pipe clamp. These things are awesome. Being portable allows me to work outside if I want also.

Disclaimer: I have a low tech 2x4/plywood bench that I use for "other stuff".

[Ken Fitzgerald]

IIRC....FWW reviewed a bunch of workbenches in the past year.

[Jerome Hanby]

I shake that bench every time I go into Sam's Club :D. It's pretty solid. I've considered buying one to use while building my bench, then letting it be an auxiliary table for assembly or whatever afterward.



As a more local alternative, our Sam's Club has 72"x25"x1.5" maple benches with a sturdy steel base for $200. A friend grabbed one a year ago and it's a good basic bench that you could expand into a nice wwing bench.

[Dave Cavanaugh]

We got a couple of the H7724 benches http://www.grizzley.com/products/60-Workbench-With-Drawers-Birch/H7724 for our school CAD manufacturing lab. They haven't held up very well. The top is only 3/4" thick, the drawer fronts have pulled off, and the drawer hardware is very fragile and light duty. I think you could build something better for about the same money.

[Michael Faurot]

I have not seen or used any of the Grizzly benches. Based on some of the pictures of the different benches Grizzly has and other accounts in this thread it sounds like the Grizzly benches are similar to a used bench I recently acquired via Craigslist for very little money.

Some of the things I encountered with the cheap bench I got, you could apply as well. One nice benefit of getting my bench used and in decent condition--I didn't have to put it together. But I still wound up putting in a fairly significant amount of time and effort to make it usable.

The first thing I noticed about the bench I got was that the top was thin (3/4" oak) and it was cupped with a depression down the center. So I spent the better part of an afternoon flattening that out with various hand planes. I then oiled the top I had just flattened with a 50/50 mix of BLO and mineral spirits.

In the process of flattening the top, I noticed the thing was very light and I was constantly moving it around when I was running my planes over the top. To better stablize the bench and keep it from shifting around on me I set it on a quarter sheet of plywood and then anchored the legs to the plywood with L brackets. Then I purchased six 40lb bags of water softener salt to give me about 240lbs of mass to hold the the thing in place. I chose salt, because I also have a water softener and plus I like that the bags are made of a reasonably strong plastic and shouldn't leak. With this improvement in place, the bench did not move around anymore. An alternative would have been to anchor the legs to the floor, but I needed the option of being able to move it if necessary.
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Lengthwise, the bench was now pretty stable. But front-to-back, it was somewhat rickety. So I decided to enhance things a bit by adding diagonal supports to the legs on the left and right sides, arranged in opposing directions, plus I added an additional lengthwise support in the back. The back support added a bit of extra support, but mostly I just did it so I wouldn't see the back sides of the drawers.
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Overall, the bench is workable, but will probably just be a transitional tool until I find or make my ultimate bench. For the price I got it for and the time I put in to make it usable, it's not quite a gloat, but comes close.

[Bruce Page]

IIRC....FWW reviewed a bunch of workbenches in the past year.
As I recall, they weren't very inpressed with the Grizzly.

[Pat Germain]

I'm not trying to start a Christopher Schwarz cult, but anyone wanting an inexpensive starter workbench should look hard at his "24-hour Workbench"

http://www.popularwoodworking.com/projectplans_display/?planid=11121

When he did this article, he spent $180.00 on the whole bench; including hardware! That won't even cover shipping for some pre-assembled benches.

[Jeff Monson]

Well I did order the bench from griz after the 1st couple of posts I felt pretty good, then after a few more replies came in I did a little more research and there has been nothing really good said about the grizzley work benches, so as luck would have it I received an email back today that the bench is on backorder until June. So I think I'll cancel the order.

On a positive note I did stop by sams club today as recemmonded by Scott Spencer and checked out their maple top bench and for 200 bucks its REALLY nice. 72x25 inch maple top with steel legs, I dont think you can go wrong, My only concern is how easy it will be to retro fit a vise, but I'm gonna find out.

[Terry Achey]

Hi Jeff,
I'm pretty sure the photo Michael sent in is one of the Grizzly benchs I saw at the store, but perhaps and older version. Vises and other components and design features look the same. If I recall, this model sold in the range of $250 to $275. Difference being that the store model wasn't oak. In any event, it all depends what features and functions you expect from a bench. $200 for the Sam's club top may be the best route. On the other hand, if you need to buy vises and drawer hardware, dogs, etc. and build a solid frame, you will probably have well over $300 invested. For me, the my bench needs were less than those folks that do alot of hand tooling and so I chose the prefab commercial version. After weeks of use I have no regrets with the Griz.

Hope it all works out well for you.

[Jerome Hanby]

On a positive note I did stop by sams club today as recemmonded by Scott Spencer and checked out their maple top bench and for 200 bucks its REALLY nice. 72x25 inch maple top with steel legs, I dont think you can go wrong, My only concern is how easy it will be to retro fit a vise, but I'm gonna find out.

Did you get a vise mounted? I'd love some details!

[Paul Johnstone]

http://www.grizzley.com/products/78-Maple-Workbench/H7721
.

Can I offer a suggestion.. Maybe this won't work if you are a big handtool guy, but you can make a very strong and inexpensive bench quickly, out of 2 x 4 and 3/4 plywood. You can double up the the plywood top if you want bench dogs. I was going to do that, but I ended up runnning T track and using Kreg Klamps to hold things down.

If you want inexpensive drawers, search the thrift stores, etc for old filing cablinets. You can get them for $10-20 each. They are great for storing things like jigsaws, ROS, etc. The short ones can go under the bench (or under the tablesaw fence on the right side).

To me, that's the best way to make a fast, functional, inexpensive bench. At the other extreme, if you want something that looks good and is a handtool dream, I think you need to build your own because getting a commerical one of comparable quality is insanely expensive.

[Jeff Monson]

Jerome,

Wow thats an old thread, caught me off guard for a second, I was reading through some posts and thought, hmmm... I asked a question similar to that awhile ago and viola, it was me!!

Anyways, yes I did mount a vise on the bench, I put it on the end of the bench, I only had to add a piece of 3/4" plywood under the top for a spacer, (the vise mount was a piece of cake) other than that it works really nice, I also added some bench dogs and I anchored the bench to my wall studs with some lag bolts now its really solid.

I wish I had a bigger bench but my shop is REALLY small so the sams bench serves me well for now.

[george wilson]

I haven't time o read all the posts,but the FWW article said the Grizzly benches go convex when boards are clamped in the tail vise between dogs. I don't recommend them.

[Jerome Hanby]

Thanks for the reply. I was thinking of grabbing on of those Sam's benches to get by until I can build a bench. The vise info is a big help!


Jerome,

Wow thats an old thread, caught me off guard for a second, I was reading through some posts and thought, hmmm... I asked a question similar to that awhile ago and viola, it was me!!

Anyways, yes I did mount a vise on the bench, I put it on the end of the bench, I only had to add a piece of 3/4" plywood under the top for a spacer, (the vise mount was a piece of cake) other than that it works really nice, I also added some bench dogs and I anchored the bench to my wall studs with some lag bolts now its really solid.

I wish I had a bigger bench but my shop is REALLY small so the sams bench serves me well for now.