All the frames are 18mm Baltic Birch. The cabinet boxes are Premcore Plus plywood which is very light. I stayed with the dados for the drawer drawer slides and once finished and waxed they slide very smoothly! The cabinets are finished with Osmo Raw. And the first cabinet I used 9mm Baltic Birch for the bottoms and it seems to be plenty strong. For the second two cabinets I went with 12mm Baltic Birch and they are very strong!
Instead of using T-Track I cut a MatchFit dovetail groove for their dovetail clamps to secure work on the face.
The tops are laminated 18mm Baltic Birch for a total thickness of 36mm, then edge banded with 12mm hard maple and black Formica laminate on both sides. For the two cabinets that I placed side by side, I did not want a seam in the middle under the window in my garage shop so I dowelled and extended the tops to be one long benchtop for those. I also wanted to cover the bolt holes on the top so I used the Benchdogs MFT plugs for that as I made all the holes 20mm.
The wall the bench is against is sloped towards the garage door which is why I used some additional blocking between the benches and the adjustable feet so that I could get them level and in plane with each other.
I liked the tool holders at the back in the plans by made mine out of Baltic Birch with hard maple on the top and rubberized cork to go against the wall.
Lastly I made a "bridge" between the benches to mount my mitre saw. I will eventually drill more 20mm holes on both sides of the top to mount a removable fence - likely Incra.
I am currently working on the drawers for the second set of benches. Then I will make a new single version for my drill press, and plan to make a matching flip top cart in a similar style for a bench sander and portable planer.
I love this bench system and have learned so much on this project as everything is new for me. I have no doubt the bench will out live me!
Thank you for an awesome bench design Suso!
