Benchtop Bench & Vise #1: Inspiration

I very much need to upgrade my current clamping solutions in the shop as my Jay Bates inspired Moxon Vise just isn’t cutting it, I cant work on all face of the workpiece like you can on a traditional Woodworking Woodbench which currently isn’t in the budget.

I just wanted to say before anyone comments about it, I couldnt afford to do the entire project in Maple or solid oak so I used construction grade lumber Kiln dried 2×4’s for part of the worksurface and bottom frame and integrated solid oak into the workbench section as that would be getting alot of abuse.

I went to WoodCraft and saw a solution to my problem and it was called a Sjobergs Smart Vise

While researching the design I also came across this project plans by Jeff Miller of Popular Woodworking and also used these ideas to go into my version.. I have attached the plans here

but as usual I couldn’t afford it and to be honest it didn’t have great reviews and was a little small for me at only 14 1/2”x12” but more importantly I need to adjust the height of it as I am kind of tall at 6’2”.

So I decided to use this Smart vise as the inspiration for my build.

So off I went to design my own plans on Sketchup and spend nearly 2 days doing all kinds of woodworking practices like using chisels, saws, routers any conceivable project I could use this bench for so I could determine what he work surface size needed to be and more importantly what its final height should be.

-- Thanks Ed “A bad day woodworking is better than a good day working. ~Author unknown” . Come check out my website for more about what I make and how at www.edscustomwoodcrafts.com