Thoughts on this portable work station?

[LFS19]

https://www.paoson.com/en/blog/making-a ... art-1--n22

Plans can be bought online for £18. Not sure whether to go for it or not, what do you think?

I like the extendable surface and especially the ability to mount tools underneath (I don’t have a table saw, so the idea of mounting my circular saw underneath to make one seems cool).

Thanks a lot.

 

[beech1948]

£18 seems a bit steep

 

[LFS19]

Indeed. I’m somewhat at the mercy of other people’s designs, though.
I don’t really have the experience making or designing functional contraptions. I’ve only just become reasonably good at my joints :mrgreen:

Thanks

 

[custard]

If it's the design you want then £18 is a bargain. You'll easily save that in wasted hours and materials on cock-ups.

The bigger question is the one you asked, is the design any good? Top of mind, getting those wings to lay true with the central top will take an awful lot of fiddling, it's unlikely to be as robust as a traditional bench when it comes to planing or mortice chopping, but at the same time it won't give you the "automatic squareness" that the Festool MTF style benches deliver.

I haven't looked through the cutting list but I guess there's two sheets of 18mm BB/BB Birch Plywood in that design, which will cost about £60 a sheet. Add in some other bits and I'd guess it's around £150 in material costs...plus the plan cost!

Personal view based on not a lot of analysis, but I suspect there are better options out there.

 

[Sideways]

I don't find it very innovative, so in my view, no, the plans are not worth £18

 

[LFS19]

If it's the design you want then £18 is a bargain. You'll easily save that in wasted hours and materials on cock-ups.

The bigger question is the one you asked, is the design any good? Top of mind, getting those wings to lay true with the central top will take an awful lot of fiddling, it's unlikely to be as robust as a traditional bench when it comes to planing or mortice chopping, but at the same time it won't give you the "automatic squareness" that the Festool MTF style benches deliver.

I haven't looked through the cutting list but I guess there's two sheets of 18mm BB/BB Birch Plywood in that design, which will cost about £60 a sheet. Add in some other bits and I'd guess it's around £150 in material costs...plus the plan cost!

Personal view based on not a lot of analysis, but I suspect there are better options out there.

Clearly not the best option, then. Thanks for the heads up.

It’s pretty difficult finding what I need actually. As a student I don’t have a lot of money, so the obvious choice is to build my own to save on costs, but that has its own set of problems.

I’ve basically been learning sat on a chair from the kitchen with a black & decker workmate, which isn’t ideal. #-o :mrgreen:

 

[ScaredyCat]

I'm not sure it's worth it - I'd looked at it a couple of times before - he's made lots of stuff like that - but in the end I just watched a few videos on youtube and built a cart that I can drop my table saw or my router table into. It has fold out side panels to extend the table saw/router table section. I had specific needs - it needed to be able to get through the doorways in my house, where it's stored with my kit. It was a piece of cake, even for me. Take a look at mitre saw stations too with the fold out side supports .

I think this this is what I saw and then built my own version. I used this method to make sure the top of the table saw was lined up with the sides.

I built mine from a sheet of plywood from B&Q. I had them cut if for me. Cost of the plywood was £35.

 

[Tasky]

I'm sure it's not, but these things always look flimsy and delicate to me.

I guess there's two sheets of 18mm BB/BB Birch Plywood in that design, which will cost about £60 a sheet. Add in some other bits and I'd guess it's around £150 in material costs...plus the plan cost!

For that kind of money, you could build a more traditional style bench based on techniques in the Paul Sellers project, but alter the dimensions to fit your needs... and if you need portability, just slap some pivoting casters on the feet.

Is this just for power tools, or will you be needing things like vices?

 

[Sideways]

If you can do joints, you can make a frame for a bench of your own design or a pair of trestles / sawhorses. Softwood can be plenty strong enough.
If you want to use power tools, then the "festool mft" style top is very versatile. Buy an affordable cnc drilled mdf board off ebay or buy a thick sheet of moisture resistant mdf (flooring grade) and invest in a Parf Guide from Axminster so you can make your own as many times as you want. And trade up to a track saw. ..
If you want to use planes, your bench needs some mass. That's a bit of a contradiction with the idea of portable. The compromise it to have something heavy that breaks down into not quite so heavy pieces. A double thickness of birch ply gives a very strong and pretty heavy 36mm thick bench top, then bolt on a vice and dream up a knock down frame.

 

[dzj]

With constant tweaking, it could work in a shop.
Wouldn't survive 2 job site moves, though.