Workbench of many colors

I have been wanting a proper workbench for a long time but between buying the lumber and vises I thought the cost was prohibitive. I finally got lucky and found a millwork shop that made custom moldings that was going out of business. I stopped in to see what he had and bought enough lumber to finally start my project. He didn’t have enough of any one variety to complete the whole bench so I bought pretty much what he had. This included poplar, 2 varieties of maple, white oak and sapele. Average price was just under $1.00 per board foot. I picked up the vices from Lee Valley and got underway.

The finished bench measures 28 1/2” wide by 75” long and 35” high. The top is a full 2 1/2” thick and the aprons are 6” deep. I don’t know how much it weighs but it IS heavy. I chose to go with 3/4” round dog holes because of their versatility and because it was easier to make them than square ones.

This image show the Veritas Twin Screw tail vice and looks down the bench from that end. You can see why I called it a workbench of many colors by the color variation in the top. The top is mostly maple with the front apron being white oak.

The front vice is a large quick release vice also from Lee Valley. The vice jaws are laminated maple and the end is hand cut dovetails. This bench was modeled after “The Essential Workbench” I found at Fine Woodworking.

The legs and stretchers are all mortise and tenon, hand cut. The legs attach to the feet with draw bored mortise and tenon. The stretchers are attached with wedged mortise and tenon joints. I cut the wedges from a small piece of sapele.

This shows the half blind dovetails used to join the ends to the front apron.

To finish the bench, I sprayed 4 coats of poly on the base and used a beeswax/turpentine/boiled linseed oil mixture on the top, I am very pleased with the end result and this thing will get much use in the future.