New here...a few questions.

[Sticks McGee]

new here from Northwest Indiana..

Mechanic by trade since 1986. I like to dabble in woodworking and do very little automotive side work. My garage is small (just a tad over a one car) and I am looking to do somee stuff to take advantage of my limited space.

I have a Grizzly contractor table saw (cast iron..heavy) and a home built router table (way too big). Currently no work bench out there..

So..What I have planned to do:

Back wall of garage I want to build a work bench and I have about 12' to work with. I want to build the bench and make it open underneath to house 4 rolling/mobile cabinets that can be used for tool storage and can be rolled out into the middle of the garage to be used as an assembly bench and also an outfeed table for the table saw. I am going to build these with drawers to put things in. I plan to take my table saw off the factory legs and build a mobile base/cabinet so that I can store the tools for the saw in it and I want to turn one of the extension wings into a router table to save space and take advantage of the table saw fence to use on the router too.

Originally I thought about building the cabinets on top of a mobile base idea I saw in Woodsmith. The issue I see with that however is that the design has you lifting up the front with a rolling lever with a hook to tilt it back and roll with rear casters. Since the height of the work bench is critical and needs to house these cabinets and these will line up with the table saw height (or slightly lower) I don't want to leave several inches of gap between the tops of the roller cabs and the under side of the bench to allow the fronts to be lifted enough to make them able to roll. So I am toying with the idea of making them rest on permanent casters and using some form of wedges or something to make them sit and stay in one place when I need them to. I believe the top of my table saw is around 36-36.5" tall. If I build the mobile table saw base to put the top of the saw right at 36.5" then I would build my rollers to be around 36.25" tall. Give myself about 1/4" clearance between the tops of those and the bottom of the bench top.

I plan to make the bench top out of 2x4 frame with sides and back members and a series of 2x4 running front to back as kind of a joist spaced 12-16" apart. On top of the frame will sit 3/4" OSB or MDF and the top of that covered with 1/4" masonite. So the tickness will end up being 4.5" tall. This will put the bench top at a height of 41". This height around 41-42" seems like a comfortable height for a bench.

So I am just wondering if I could get some opinions or suggestions on doing this from you all?

Thanks

Sticks

 

[Kaizen]

welcome sticks. I have the same situation in my woodshop which is an old single car garage with wooden floor. my final setup is on one side of the garage I made cabinets about a foot deep with pegboard fronts as wide and tall as I could. I hang tools on the outside and inside and then I have all the shelves. my table saw is about 4 feet wide so it rolls under the cabinet. I have a jointer on wheels under there as well.
back wall I have an old display from home depot. just a basic 4 deep shelves that I put my boxed tools, portable tools like table saw, sawzall etc
other wall I have wood storage above a 12 foot long workbenceh. similar to yours but just used a smoother plywood top and called it a day. its actually like 4 feet then I put a radial arm saw on stand then the rest. so its a workbench but also can use with 8 plus foot wood. under the bench I have a shop vac, mortise machine, drill press, etc.
the carts are a lot of work imo. if they were tall enough to store say benchtop tools and then wheel it out and have it at working height it would be worth it. also most tools need considerable weight to keep them from tipping or moving as you use them.
the key I found was keep the whole shop portable and the whole middle open.

 

[soj]

Welcome to GJ Sticks.

Your dimensions seem fine if you are sure about the finished height of your bench and TS.

You are right to want to change the design of the under bench cabinets to casters instead of the lift and roll design. I suggest using locking casters for all four corners of each cabinet. But, beware, not all locking casters are created equal. Some "lock" by only preventing the wheel from turning, either by friction against the rolling surface of the wheel, or by a wedge action between the side of the wheel and the caster frame at the axle area. These will prevent the cabinet from rolling, but it will still "wiggle" some when using it as a work surface. True locking casters will lock the wheel from rotating AND lock the caster from turning as well. There are various ways of doing this, some use a separate pin or latch to lock the caster action, others use a single lever to lock both at the same time. Any type of double lock will make the cabinet more secure if you are using something like a hand plane, or anything where you will be pushing against the work surface.

I am glad you brought this up, as I have been thinking about building an out feed table, but had not thought about storing it under a workbench. I also need to build a bench for a chop saw, so building it to accommodate the out feed table seems like the way to go for me. Thanks for the idea.

-jp