Machine shop benches

[thunderskunk]

Howdy,

I’ve made a few benches in my time.

Here’s #1 made from scraps snagged while working as a tractor mechanic:

Here’s #2 that I built in a dingy basement and it’s never coming out again, also overbuilt:




Here’s 3 and 4 that I over-built for use in the machine shop. I have 100% confidence I could toss them over a gap as temporary bridges for vehicle traffic, but they don’t make ideal benches to be honest. Bulky, hard to move, and while they have serious strength, they tend to vibrate in ways you could only tell running precision tools atop them.


Here’s one I put in the other day that’s essentially a shelf with some legs:



And this one is a shelf. If I could do it all again… they’d all be shelves.



They’ll get stain and poly one of these days.

But now I’ve got the tractor out back that needs serious benches. Nothing on it is lightweight nor clean. Not to say a wooden bench won’t work, but I don’t mind building some metal benches to beef things up and reduce the footprint. I’ve seen some awful angle iron boxes welded up.



So here’s the root question: what’s a good angle-iron bench look like? Size wise, I’ve found my sweet spot is 33” high, 2-2.5 ft deep, and - bench that overhangs is a ton easier to clean underneath and access storage, even if there’s a lower shelf. Also the benefit that if it’s not a monster truss bridge disguised as a bench, it’s easier to move when large things are on their way in and out. I’m not a weld shop, but welding happens. I’m going to have to do a lot of painting, which I’ve never done before at scale. If not metal, any particular stain and coating that’s a bit more tolerant of the occasional weld?

 

[karoc]

Very nice, well organized. Plus a coffee maker for meditation purposes.

 

[thunderskunk]

Very nice, well organized. Plus a coffee maker for meditation purposes.

It's all a lie. The limits of a camera frame are a wonderful thing.

There was a reason nobody wanted that coffee maker at the auction it came from...

 

[johninct]

Maybe shimming and bolting the benches to the wall and floor would help with the vibration problem?

 

[captain14]

Some nice benches and all are custom and made to fit your workshop.

 

[BillK]

I have two 8' ones almost identical to the second one in your pics. Only difference is mine both have 3/4" plywood with about 1/16" steel on top of that. Like you said I think I could put a car on top of them and they wouldnt flinch

 

[CV428]

My father made a few benches like that in my childhood home close to 40 years ago- all reclaimed materials (2x4s back when they were actually 2x4s and you couldn't count the rings from 10' away) from demolition projects. The home went up for sale again last month, I browsed the pictures for nostalgia purposes. There it was, same workbench, same cabinets, still there.

 

[whateg01]

So here’s the root question: what’s a good angle-iron bench look like?

It all depends. The ideal bench is the one that does the job. If you work on tall stuff, a shorter bench is ideal. If you stand at it, taller may be better. If the stuff you put on it is wider, a wider bench is in order. If you weld on it, metal is less likely to burn. Too wide and you can't reach the middle.

Your benches may seem overbuilt, and maybe they are for the task they handle. But there are some really serious benches out there that weigh a lot. Fireball is renting a stocked fixture table that he says weighs about 4500# as shipped.

 

[545_days]

Given that beast of a tractor, I'm thinking that a heavy duty welding / fabrication table would work. You probably won't want all the drilled holes in the top though.

I searched Facebook Marketplace for welding table. Here are some random results:




Another option if you will be dealing with lots of oil, grease and fluids might be a transmission rebuilding bench slopeing to a drain to contain the mess. This one looks pretty light weight, but you could support it on a stout wooden bench.

 

[thunderskunk]

Fireball is renting a stocked fixture table that he says weighs about 4500# as shipped.

I keep running into Fireball. Excellent marketing; Who wouldn't look up their website to see who makes the biggest commercial made vise in the US? Project farm did a nice lineup of testing on bench vises, though not including Fireball. He tested things like slop, backlash, ultimate strength in a few scenarios, etc. While an indicator of quality... I don't care about those things with a bench vise. I cleaned up an old rigid, and it works great. If I needed something that worked like a precision bearing press, I'd buy an old milling vise which has bolt-on jaws and beat on it. If I needed something clamped with 15,000 lbs of force while I work on it, I'd weld it to something heavy. If I needed 15,000 lbs of press force... I'd use a press. If it were an odd shape that for whatever reason would fit in a bench vise but not a bearing press, I'd build a custom press out of C-channel laying around, which I've done before. All to say: I don't think a decent bench vise needs to be $2000.

In the same manner, I don't see the value proposition of a several thousand dollar welding table. I could make that top plate with a plasma table and a drill with a countersink bit. I just sold the plasma table, but if I needed another one, $2800 from Langmuir. My mill isn't big enough to do massive plates, but I could do a section piecemeal and weld it in. But again... I don't care about those things. Not to say I don't use fixture clamps for welding, just that if I did, I'd just weld it to the table/grind it off after or drill a hole in the wood and nut/bolt it in place. If I were a pro welder in a welding shop who did something different every day where this plate with holes was my go-to for everything, I can either pay $12,000 for someone else to make a table I know I can make myself or spend time making it. If my shop rate is $150/hr, that's maybe 60 hrs I can dump into the project with a $5k materials budget where I can make my bench whatever I want. Sort of... I know better. Add in that your not making product for a few weeks, but you usually save those projects for lulls in work.

Not to say I haven't spent tons of money on either: I've bought several Stevens fixture plates for use on EDM and milling machines, which are just plates with holes in them. Fortunately not my money, but the ROI is there: We don't make those for a living, and the precision it offers combines with specific hardware saves a ton of money/time. A welding table is just a welding table. You work with carpentry tolerances, and if you can cut/weld plate, you have the capability to do everything Fireball is offering...


Rant over. The bench looks really cool, just not several thousand dollars cool.

 

[Danno1]

... I don't think a decent bench vise needs to be $2000.

Well, do you think it needs to be $13 big ones???

https://www.zoro.com/pahwa-qti-non-sparking-non-magnetic-parallel-vice-150-x-150-mm-pv-1012/i/G900428499/

.

 

[thunderskunk]

Well, do you think it needs to be $13 big ones???

https://www.zoro.com/pahwa-qti-non-sparking-non-magnetic-parallel-vice-150-x-150-mm-pv-1012/i/G900428499/

.

Jeez… that’s like the government, the military, the ASME nuclear commission, NASA, and MI6 got together to design a bench vise…

 

[thunderskunk]

Back in search of more ideas. Different project. That weird 3-D printer looking thing on one of my benches is called a Renishaw Equator.


It measures parts automatically. It’s expensive, incredibly accurate, and does not like instability. It also doesn’t like complete rigidity: if say the bench is screwed to the wall for stability, it now senses every vibration in the building relating to that wall.

The advantage of this machine is it being lightweight: a normal coordinate measuring machine weights tons, costs six figures, and is even more sensitive to the environment. This thing packs up in a compact car and goes for road trips.

So, I’m looking for a semi-portable, fairly rigid work bench that can hold this thing. Unfortunately not a folding table, tried that. Anyone have suggestions?

 

[whateg01]

Are those folding welding benches stable enough? Old black and Decker work mate?

 

[Recoveryman]

Thunderskunk: To stop the tools from dancing on your work tables, anchor the benches to the floor. As an old machinist, I can assure you that most machine tools and their bench is anchored to a good concrete floor. Good luck.
Recoveryman

 

[thunderskunk]

A word on wooden benches:

I posted a photo of these earlier. You see that bottom board? I built that in because I thought I needed it. Seemings how 99.8% of all tables and benches don’t have a bottom shelf, I converted to four legs:

Which is great. Easier to move, I can stick my little stacker lift right under it, it’s honestly more sturdy, I can clean under it, pass rolling items under it, all sorts of great stuff.

I found a nest of mold under both benches:


The other one was much worse. Just something to think about when you’re making projects.

 

[nadogail]

Sometimes benches are over built, that’s almost never a problem.
On the other hand, under built benches are often a real problem.
If in Doubt, just build for stout.

 

[zimman]

Current status on my back porch.
Moving to garage when it gets built along with my other in storage.
Zim

 

[MovingAlong]

If the building is the source of vibration, you need to isolate the bench from that. Same methods that keep machines from transmitting vibrations into floors should keep vibrations from getting to the machines also. i.e. hockey pucks, etc..

And maybe add a few layers of 3/4" MDF to the tops to increase the mass.

Had a wood working bench that liked to move around a bit. Added a bottom shelf and then stacked about 400lbs of concrete bags on it. Increased the capabilities of the bench significantly. Just no substitute for mass

My workbench top is over 5" thick from laminating 2x6's together and hand planing the top flat. Allows me to chop mortises without much deflection...