BobS wrote:
Ernie Hunt still maintains this site where he posted some work bench plans I
made up a few years ago. Someone asked how to make a workbench with
specific tools that they had available to them and these plans, based on a
FWW design, were the result.

http://www.huntfamily.com/work_bench.htm

Very cool plans. In the interest of speed, laziness, and general
ineptitude, I can't resist the urge to offer for consideration a
dumbed-down but still solid version. Mainly my goal is to rival the
simplicity of butt joints while avoiding horrors like putting screws
into endgrain. Wondering what you'd think.

So... for the frame, I'd glue and screw the rails straight to the edges
and faces of the legs, thus avoiding my inevitable struggle with M&T
joinery. The result wouldn't look like an heirloom, but it would be
just as sturdy, I think.

For the cross-members, I'd think about cutting notches in the rails 1
1/2" deep by 3 1/2" wide to receive the 2x4s on their faces. Or maybe
I'd notch both the rails and the cross members 3/4". Although that's
twice as much work, it's still butt simple compared to M&T. Cross laps
aren't as nice as M&T, but glued and screwed in, they'd sure stop the
frame from ever twisting or racking, and they'd take the bounce out of
any top you attached.

Even if you wanted to place the cross members on edge for even less
bounce, I guess you could still cross-lap them. I suppose I'd
counterbore the hell out of the screw holes so I could use shorter
screws. Seems like this design wouldn't resist twisting as well, but
with the top attached, it's not going anywhere.

Those are my so-called thoughts on how to do this with less time and no
skill. I'd be interested to hear if you think it'd work.

Thanks for the neat plans.