The Woodworker's Workbench
Low cost, but heavy and solid!
My woodworker's workbench is simple - a laminated maple top 2¼" thick, 24" wide and 6' long, fitted with a Rockler 7" bench wise with added maple jaws, Veritas bench dogs and a Veritas holdfast. I bought the top from McMaster Carr Supply Company in 2008 for about $350 - delivery included. They were the only company I could find that could offer a laminated top in this thickness and with an oil finish (mineral oil). These tops are made for kitchen and restaurant use where one wants the bare wood surface and where it can be maintained with (mineral) oil if wanted. Other suppliers only had laminated, finished tops - not suitable for a woodworking work bench in my opinion as they are very slippery. And removing the finish takes extra work. They would be great for a workbench where you want a protective finish and where you don't need the extra friction an oil- or un-finished top provides.
The metal base is the modular shop stand system sold by Rockler. I added plywood back, sides, top and bottom. I also left a 2"opening between the base top and workbench top so I could mount clamps across (underneath) if necessary. At the bottom I have a sand box filled with sand ("sand-box" sand from the Home Depot) to give the bench enough weight so it doesn't move when I use it. It has worked very well. At roughly 300 lb it is a bear to move.
My bare bones work bench
The design is - as you can see - very simple and bare bones. After studying several books on workbenches and also having had the chance over the years to work on different kinds of workbenches, I felt this design gives me everything I need, though it is still a compromise. I really wanted a (sliding) tail vise (like on the Lie-Nielsen) but taking into account the extra work involved in fitting and mounting and the cost of quality hardware ($200), I settled for the Rockler 7" vise which I got at a deeply discounted price (clearance sale). I have no front vise, but it can be added later if I need it. I can also drill a horizontal hole in the bench and use the Veritas holdfast as a vise for planing boards on the side. For now, it works just fine. It is really nice to be able to plane boards without the bench moving...
My favorite choice would have been the Lie-Nielsen work bench, but total cost with delivery would amount to over $2,800 - that was just too much for my budget - doing woodworking as a hobby. Realize though that the Lie-Nielsen is custom built to your specification, and includes high quality hardware that should last for generations. And it is hand made in Maine. The Swedish bench maker Sjöberg used to make a bench similar to the Lie-Nielsen design with a sliding tail vise, but not anymore. I don't like the double-bench dog end vise they offer on their high-end workbench today, though it is handy for certain kind of work. And while Lie-Nielsen makes their bench top of solid, laminated maple, Sjöberg use laminated pine with a thick beech skin. The other benches Sjöberg offer today do not have the top thickness nor the heft I would want in a woodworker's workbench. As holdfast devices when using power tools they might do, especially if you add sandbags to give them more mass - or if you can bolt them to the floor. In my opinion Sjöberg's benches are grossly overpriced for what you get. I looked into benches from other manufacturers too, but did not find any I was satisfied with.
I could also have bought the lumber and made a bench myself. I ruled this out as I don't have a thickness nor jointer planer, and I did not have the confidence that I would end up with a good bench based on my joinery skill level. High quality hardware and the wood would cost closer to $1,000. And no - for a workbench I would not settle for cheap Chinese made hardware made of cast iron of unknown specification and less-than-precise machining though the savings would be a few hundred $. I have had bad experience with Chinese made metal clamps where the screws stripped little by little, and I am just afraid I would run into the same problem with the Chinese made vise hardware over time. If I were to build a workbench from scratch, I would not cheap out on the hardware nor wood - the time spent building is the same whether parts and wood is cheap or expensive. The bench I put together with its accessories costed me less than $650 (including Veritas holdfast and bench dogs), and it did not take a lot of time to put everything together for a fully functional bench. Sometimes less is just more.