Don is documenting Taddbench construction.  He's also questioning all of the assumptions that I have made regarding building them with an eye toward simplifying construction and making the finished product more durable.  Here is his first attempt. This model has many differences from the current tadd-standard.  Some of these changes were experiments that will not be repeated, others will be and will be improved upon.  Hopefully I'll get to integrating those into my construction pages.  

See notes below.

The spine section was built without it's 2nd reinforcing piece that makes it L shaped, as were the two A frames.  This leads to a small amount of wobble in the bottoms of the A-frames, and to a potential warping of the spine due to overloading of the 1' shelf. 

The tabletops were done with a laminate that makes the bench better looking and also less likely to be stained. 

The A-frames have extended work surface leg supports that run all the way up to the 2' shelf and the shelves are sitting on A-frame rails instead of on chocks.  This makes the bench both easier and harder to assemble, depending on tolerances.  Where the 2' shelf and 1' shelf are sitting on the front A-frame chock, the diagonals' chocks and the spine's chocks on the typical bench, on Don's bench the shelves sit on the rails.  During assembly the existance of those rails and the extended leg support can interfere with sliding the shelves back onto the bench.  Also the rails make the A-frames somewhat heavier.  These are minor problems compared to the extra strength in the front-back stability in the bench. 

Don is figuring out for himself if he likes these modifications and promises to build a 2nd bench.