This old workbench was "thrown together" in a weekend and served me quite well for a long time. It lived outside for several years before being brought into the No Yankee Workshop when the shop was built.
The base of the bench was made of pressure-treated pine. The top was made from two large slabs of pine. The base was held together using carriage bolts and the top was fastened to the base using lag screws. The diagonal braces were added after the bench was a couple of years old and getting wobbly.
Holding chores were done with a cheap vise ($12, WalMart) and cast iron holdfasts. One of the advantages of a bench like this is that it doesn't cause much heartburn when you need to screw a jig to it in a pinch.
The bench doesn't exist anymore but pieces of it live on (forever?). The slabs that were the top are now the seats of some garden benches. The holdfasts are still "holding fast" in my new bench and the vise is mounted on a cabinet.
Not the greatest bench ever made but it certainly served me well when the "shop" was a spot in the back yard and I had to drag the table saw out of a metal 8'x10' storage building every weekend.
