Modern Jess
Well-known member
I've been working on this drill press bench for months now. It recently showed up on the front page of GJ (before it was done, even!) but I figured I owed it to you all to post a proper build.
Here's the finished product:
--
And now, the build!
The idea kind of evolved over time. It started with a rickety old butcher block table that a friend gave to me many years back. It had seen a lot of abuse, and was infused with years of two-stroke oil from scooter engine tear-downs:
I turned it into a pile of halfway decent salvage maple, which sat on my workbench for another month or two:
Somewhere around the same time, I acquired this monster bench-top drill press that I've already posted about. It's a 60s-era PowerMatic 1150, with a three-phase motor and a VFD. Importantly, it has a fully functional variable speed feature, which (combined with the VFD) makes it really useful for metal work:
I was after a bench-top model because all the wasted space around a floor-standing drill press really bugs me. Every inch of my workshop is precious space, and I really hate wasting it. The stand I initially put the drill press on was okay, and about the right height, but was only marginally useful for storage. What I really wanted was shallow drawers for all the drill-related stuff that you use around a drill press. Stuff like this:
Before I actually acquired this specific drill press, I was thinking I could set a small bench-top DP on top of a rolling tool chest, and started to investigate the offerings from Harbor Freight. Once I actually got the drill press home, though, I quickly realized that it was far too big to set on top of a typically-sized cabinet. And at 250 pounds, the weight was a bit of a concern as well.
So I started thinking about building something shorter and more appropriately sized. Around that time, I discovered the Harbor Freight 26" top box, which had the advantage of being relatively compact and had very shallow drawers. I braved the pandemic and went to HF to pick one up:
I pondered how to proceed for a couple of days, trying to come up with a way to use the pile of maple from the butcher block table with this new top box. The challenge was to make it sturdy enough to support the drill press, and I wasn't entirely sure I had it in me. After some measurements and some rough calculations, I managed to put together a SketchUp drawing of what I thought might be a workable design:
The next few months would be a long slog of working toward that idealized goal.
The top of the butcher block had split, but the dimensions were wrong. I had to split a piece off one half and glue it to the other half:
In order to put the whole thing onto heavy-duty casters, I had to sleeve the wooden legs, which ended up being a full metal base that the rest of the table would interface to.
This was a good opportunity to improve my very, very awful welding skills:
The whole project was going back and forth between metal and wood, which I actually enjoyed. When I got bored with one, I would switch to the other.
I spent a good many hours planing the top, not so much for flatness as just to shave some of the oil-soaked wood off the top:
Then it was on to the legs, and lots of test fitting:
I used my Festool Domino in order to fasten the aprons to the legs, even though I knew that I would garner much hate on YouTube for daring to use an expensive tool. It's weird how some people get offended at something so trivial. Maybe they want me to use nothing but a butter knife and 40-grit handpaper? I don't get it.
Eventually it started taking shape:
As I was doing all the dry-fit before glue-up, I realized that I didn't have any clamps long enough to span the width of the bench. Not wanting to make a trip to HD (which I knew from previous encounters to be a pandemic ****-show) I improvised by adding some threaded rod to the project, bolted through the legs and all the way through the tool box.
This turned out to be a huge improvement to the overall strength and rigidity of the bench, as it made the tool box a structural member. There is no way this thing is going to flex or wobble.
It also gave it the bench's final name, as the threaded rod sticking out of the legs reminded me of a certain movie monster from years gone by. And thus, FrankenTable was born.
Not content with merely making it sturdy, though, I continued with the original wooden bracing I had intended, sending it well into overkill territory:
I then used carriage bolts through the aprons to reinforce the inner bracing even further. Belt AND suspenders. And another belt. And three more pairs of suspenders:
The final task was to seal the butcher block top, and for this I eventually decided to try my hand at poured epoxy. It actually turned out really nicely:
And then, finally, moving day. I let the epoxy cure for a good 48 hours, but I was still paranoid I was going to destroy it right off the bat.
Et Voila!
Oh, and I did end up buying the full-height HF tool chest, which will make a nice addition to my shop. This will be the new home for my machinist and metalworking tools:
Here's the finished product:
--
And now, the build!
The idea kind of evolved over time. It started with a rickety old butcher block table that a friend gave to me many years back. It had seen a lot of abuse, and was infused with years of two-stroke oil from scooter engine tear-downs:
I turned it into a pile of halfway decent salvage maple, which sat on my workbench for another month or two:
Somewhere around the same time, I acquired this monster bench-top drill press that I've already posted about. It's a 60s-era PowerMatic 1150, with a three-phase motor and a VFD. Importantly, it has a fully functional variable speed feature, which (combined with the VFD) makes it really useful for metal work:
I was after a bench-top model because all the wasted space around a floor-standing drill press really bugs me. Every inch of my workshop is precious space, and I really hate wasting it. The stand I initially put the drill press on was okay, and about the right height, but was only marginally useful for storage. What I really wanted was shallow drawers for all the drill-related stuff that you use around a drill press. Stuff like this:
Before I actually acquired this specific drill press, I was thinking I could set a small bench-top DP on top of a rolling tool chest, and started to investigate the offerings from Harbor Freight. Once I actually got the drill press home, though, I quickly realized that it was far too big to set on top of a typically-sized cabinet. And at 250 pounds, the weight was a bit of a concern as well.
So I started thinking about building something shorter and more appropriately sized. Around that time, I discovered the Harbor Freight 26" top box, which had the advantage of being relatively compact and had very shallow drawers. I braved the pandemic and went to HF to pick one up:
I pondered how to proceed for a couple of days, trying to come up with a way to use the pile of maple from the butcher block table with this new top box. The challenge was to make it sturdy enough to support the drill press, and I wasn't entirely sure I had it in me. After some measurements and some rough calculations, I managed to put together a SketchUp drawing of what I thought might be a workable design:
The next few months would be a long slog of working toward that idealized goal.
The top of the butcher block had split, but the dimensions were wrong. I had to split a piece off one half and glue it to the other half:
In order to put the whole thing onto heavy-duty casters, I had to sleeve the wooden legs, which ended up being a full metal base that the rest of the table would interface to.
This was a good opportunity to improve my very, very awful welding skills:
The whole project was going back and forth between metal and wood, which I actually enjoyed. When I got bored with one, I would switch to the other.
I spent a good many hours planing the top, not so much for flatness as just to shave some of the oil-soaked wood off the top:
Then it was on to the legs, and lots of test fitting:
I used my Festool Domino in order to fasten the aprons to the legs, even though I knew that I would garner much hate on YouTube for daring to use an expensive tool. It's weird how some people get offended at something so trivial. Maybe they want me to use nothing but a butter knife and 40-grit handpaper? I don't get it.
Eventually it started taking shape:
As I was doing all the dry-fit before glue-up, I realized that I didn't have any clamps long enough to span the width of the bench. Not wanting to make a trip to HD (which I knew from previous encounters to be a pandemic ****-show) I improvised by adding some threaded rod to the project, bolted through the legs and all the way through the tool box.
This turned out to be a huge improvement to the overall strength and rigidity of the bench, as it made the tool box a structural member. There is no way this thing is going to flex or wobble.
It also gave it the bench's final name, as the threaded rod sticking out of the legs reminded me of a certain movie monster from years gone by. And thus, FrankenTable was born.
Not content with merely making it sturdy, though, I continued with the original wooden bracing I had intended, sending it well into overkill territory:
I then used carriage bolts through the aprons to reinforce the inner bracing even further. Belt AND suspenders. And another belt. And three more pairs of suspenders:
The final task was to seal the butcher block top, and for this I eventually decided to try my hand at poured epoxy. It actually turned out really nicely:
And then, finally, moving day. I let the epoxy cure for a good 48 hours, but I was still paranoid I was going to destroy it right off the bat.
Et Voila!
Oh, and I did end up buying the full-height HF tool chest, which will make a nice addition to my shop. This will be the new home for my machinist and metalworking tools:
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That particular weld was TIG, and didn't need any filler rod -- I just melted the corner into the puddle. Much easier to do that way. I used MIG on the underside of the frame, where it wouldn't show -- and really, I'm glad nobody will see it.