My workbench (many pictures)

[Corset]

After trawling the web and all the advice on this fantastic site i have finally, nearly, ish completed my workbench. After a slight diversion with a bandsaw (many thanks all) i have taken some snap shots. Please be gentle its my first bench. I am 6ft 2 and hate bending so it is quite tall.

I share my workspace with the works lock up so the bench had to rollable but i needed the wheels to be removable. So i created individual castors for each wheel. Which are attached by a threaded bolt and butterfly nuts. To remove them i jack up the base take them on/off easy and safe.

I then felt it was essential to have drawers which i made badly from from roller slides and plywood. I made them fairly narrow for the top two drawers. One for the planes and one for measuring and marking equip. In plane drawer i also fitted a sub shelf to fit a sliding chisel box which i knocked up. I am happy with the space this gives and is really handy. I stole the idea of a couple of bench i saw on the web. The drawers are lined with antislip stuff which is good at protecting the tools.

I need to store my clamps in the bench as they would be "borrowed" if left them lying around so i devised a slide out drawer section for the clamps. I then banged some shelves on each end.

The bench was made out of some pine 3 by 4 timber i routed out housing joints and bolted and glued together. The top is three sheets of ply and some MDF glued and screwed together. It was very heavy and i am glad for the hours down the gym when i slung it on.
For the top i decided to have a front vise and then drill the top similar to a festool MFT table. THIS WAS A BAD DECISION. Fortunately i didn't drill too many holes :?. Basically i don,t know why but the clamps when under pressure lift the item being clamped. I think this was because the holes were not drilled at 90 (foolishly didn't thinka degree or two made a difference) and the base of the clamps are screwed on the underside of the MFT table.
Realising i had cocked up i decided to drill 19mm hole to fit bench dog and the wonder dogs to try and save the day( hopefully will) I then drilled the table so it is like swiss cheese. (not as in line as they could be as i got a bit drill happy)I then filed the festool clamps to fit 19mm holes and i will extend a dowel to the end to stop them lifting. I have been buying rough sawn timber as i like scrub planing etc so i am going to fit a sort of tail vice. The top was varnished and waxed.

The rear of the bench i have stacked a load of ikea boxes(terrible i know but i didn't want to spend all my time building boxes to put screws in) and my thicknesser (can't do it al by hand).

I have a bit left to do but i am reasonably happy. I am keen to get the endvise sorted to make planing planks a bit easier. Anyway there we go. Glad to contribute a bit after gleaning so much info off the site.

 

[OPJ]

Hey, that's not bad at all.

A bench doesn't have to look glamorous - after all, it's only going to take a battering from your work anyway!

I would worry too much about the swiss-cheese look either, I'm sure you'll find that, in time, just about each and every hole there gets used for a different job and different size of length of timber.

One thing that I did notice was that you didn't put a well in your bench, though not everyone does I guess.

What's wrong with the drawers, you say they were badly made?
Seems fine to me. Holds everything well, it all looks neat and you can clearly see each and every tool from the one next to it...

Nothing like my workshop!! :?

I really like the idea of keeping all your clamps at such an easily reachable distance, plus you can access all-four sides of your bench.

And now it's time to get woodworking. Best of luck! :wink:

 

[PowerTool]

Looks a very useful and practical bench (which is what they need to be)
Hmm - same vacuum cleaner as I have - and did I spy some Japanese saws of the "special offer at Lidl" variety :?: :lol:

You have a lot of nice tools,glad you have somewhere to keep (and use) them - will just wait now for piccies of the projects you can now make

Andrew

 

[Alf]

Some nice ideas there, Corset. Thanks for showing it. You're not the only one to think about making an oversized Festool table (been meaning to put that link up for a while - sorry for the minor hijack). One thing I'd suggest; get your files sorted out so they're not rattling against each other like that. Only one thing worse than a blunt file and that's one blunted in storage instead of use. And you may safely assume that's a "do as I say not as I do" suggestion and a DAMHIKT all in one...

Cheers, Alf

 

[dedee]

Nice bench - you've certainly seemed to have made good use of all the available space.

Andy

 

[Corset]

Just got my bench dogs in post so i will be testing out to see how effective they are. I like that torsion box festool table wish i had seen it earlier.... :roll:

 

[Les1693]

That's a good job, should last you a life time.

Les

PS - Can you make the photos a bit smaller next time.