Ok, another Bruce Johnson creation hits the airwaves. Bruce builds a new workbench!
Anyone watch this episode? He starts by explaining how bad and wobbly his old workbench is, then decides on building a new one! I had high hopes when he specified hard maple for the frame. He made M&T joints and did the large mortises in the legs by dadoing two 2x4s and gluing them together. He even used the clipped head brad trick (also shown by Mr. Marks on his show today) to keep the large glued surfaces from sliding around. So far, no major screwups, just some poor fitting tenons that "will get cleaned up with some sanding", and some cheap hardware to hold it all together. I knew things were going downhill when he used basically a draw bolt arrangement to hold the legs together and had a flat washer and nut inside a 1" hole gripping against the curved side. I still was maintaining my composure until he decides to top off this hard maple workbench base. Did he use more hard maple? Noooooo! He decides on three layers of 3/4" MDF. Awesome dude! He spritzes on some yellow glue around the middle of one sheet and without even stopping to spread it out any slaps on the next sheet and installs about 100 screws "to give it incredible strength". Next layer and a few hundred more screws and he has a nice particle board workbench.... He did decide to protect the MDF from dents by banding the top with some more maple (attached to the MDF with brads, no glue) He went on to say that since he is always spilling cans of varnish and his coffee, he'll give the top a nice durable coat (2) of poly to protect this fine piece.
He claimed a total cost of $4-500 (including a small Record vise attached with lag bolts into the MDF).
I admit I've built benches this way, but I down graded his hard maple lower section to pine 2x4's and upgraded the top to some nicer plywood. Total cost about $20-30 (vise not included)