What's your workbench look like?

[jeffmoss26]

Justanoldguy, nice collection of license plates! I like your setup too!

 

[Sunnfjordingen]

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[Justanoldguy]

No need to be hatin' on the guys who spend time actually cleaning up after each project is done, and take pride in their space, tools and equipment.

Ratt hasn't proved he is like that at all.

And Who said the project was done?
Assumption is the base of all Fck ups.

Hate is such a hateful word. Not sure where you are coming from with such another "assumption" ..

 

[csp]

Not sure where you are coming from with such another "assumption" ..

Probably from the same place as the assumption that all of the benchtops that are clean when the picture was taken actually stay clean or that the owners never do any work on them.

 

[jfleisher]

Well, mine was clean this one time...

 

[dittle fart around]

Nice clamp on drafting light. I've never seen so many hemostats in the same place outside of a hospital or a pot festival. What do you do on your bench, graphic art maybe?

 

[Jack Olsen]

Yeah, I vaguely remember those cutting pads (if that's what those are) from the old days of graphic design and layout.

 

[jfleisher]

A little of everything, graphic arts, model making, hobby electronics, R/C sailboats, wargame miniatures...

 

[atch]

Nice clamp on drafting light. I've never seen so many hemostats in the same place outside of a hospital or a pot festival...

took the words right outta my mouth.

 

[dittle fart around]

took the words right outta my mouth.

Nice to see someone get the pot references. My son borrowed my hemostats for a school project and I had to clean them up.

 

[softailgarage]

why do i start to drool everytime jack post's pictures of his shop ? and then he adds a grateful dead quote too.... pictures to follow

 

[chumley360]

why do i start to drool everytime jack post's pictures of his shop ?

Cause Jack's shop looks awesome?

 

[jmott]

Here's what I've done since we moved in a few months ago. I want to do so much more, but I had final exams right after we moved in, and then I studied for and took the bar exam. Now that I'm finished with the bar, I'll be adding electrical over the bench, adding a cabinet over the bench, and shelving throughout the garage.

 

[slowtwitch]

Here's my bench. thanks to corporate waste, the tops of some offices were being scrapped. Not being proud, i asked if I can have them and they told me take them all. I really like the rounded inside corner ....

and this is how it looks most of the time....

 

[PassnThru]

Homebuilt about 16 years ago

View media item 3367

 

[steel 35]

Ya this is normal just clean it enough to put another project down.

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[Dustin Crawford]

More pics of bench holding engine please

 

[PCO6]

Dustin - I love the bench mounted engine stand. I made one of those when I raced off road cars way back in the 70's and they work great. That looks like a pretty good engine you are working on!

Stew

 

[nonhog]

I'm amazed at how many of you have garage shops that look like your in there every day. With work and 3 boys running us ragged from baseball and soccer every weekend, I just don't have as many hours available. How do you do it? No job? No kids? No wife? What's the deal?

I was just about to say something like this
V

Ya this is normal just clean it enough to put another project down.

[/IMG]

With the help of fun threads like this I'll start building something stout soon.

 

[JCQuick]

Heres mine in use and also keeping the VW thing alive

 

[Mike_C]

Still working on mine, going to add a few cross braces before painting the frame.

2x2 11 gauge steel tubing, bowling alley top, covered with 1/8" galvanized steel. The bowling alley was stored outside for a few years... so I picked it up fairly cheap, but the weather wasn't kind to it. Found the galvanized steel cheap on craigslist.

 

[dittle fart around]

Still working on mine, going to add a few cross braces before painting the frame.


2x2 11 gauge steel tubing, bowling alley top, covered with 1/8" galvanized steel. The bowling alley was stored outside for a few years... so I picked it up fairly cheap, but the weather wasn't kind to it. Found the galvanized steel cheap on craigslist.

Great looking workbench, how much was the steel? I got a chunk of bowling alley top years ago made a great top for my desk.

 

[slowtwitch]

Dustin - I love the bench mounted engine stand. I made one of those when I raced off road cars way back in the 70's and they work great. That looks like a pretty good engine you are working on!

Stew

Here's the engine on the stand, with my SyncLink throttle system.

 

[PCO6]

^^^ That's a LOT nicer than the ones I worked on "way back". But then again, we could haul them out of DD's and get almost as many as we wanted!

 

[dittle fart around]

View media item 10817
This is my Father In Laws watch makers bench. He's had it since he apprenticed in the trade in the early forties.

 

[zmotorsports]

Took a couple pictures of mine last night once I got a few projects out of the shop and the benches cleaned. My two workbenches on the west of my shop are fastened to both the concrete and the west wall so they are very sturdy and when tugging or pulling on the vise nothing moves. They are just constructed of 2"x4"s and have plywood doors. They are painted with gray Zolatone paint which is the textured finish that you see. I have 8 gauge stainless steel on the benchtops which are bent up 4" at the rear and go under the power strip and slightly under the pegboard and it is rolled about an inch in the front so there are no sharp edges. My air lines are run under the front edge of the workbenches and there is a 110v power strip that runs along the back edge.

On the south bench I have my vise mounted as well as a Williams Lo-Buck brake at the other end. I fabricated a small mount just next to the brake that is used for various attachments that I built for automatic transmissions and a couple attachments for holding motorcycle, ATV and snowmobile engines on so I can rotate them when needed.

My north bench is a little shorter due to the compressor room on the northern most side of it. It is constructed in the same manor as the other but rather than the pegboard I have a few small parts dividers hanging above it with regularly used small supplies/parts. My toolbox resides in the middle of my shop's west wall between the two workbenches.

This is of my south workbench.

North workbench.

The next two pictures are of my welding workbench. It is constructed of 2" square tube with a 1/2" plate welded to the top. It is 3'x5' sitting at 32" tall. I also added a shelf underneathe for storage. The top sits about 6" wider than the base so when tig welding and sitting down I can comfortabley sit without my knees hitting the frame of the table/bench. I added a bar on two sides, one for vise-grip style clamps and the other for my C-clamp style clamps. It is painted Miller blue and has locking swivel casters at all four corners. I can roll it wherever needed and lock it down and it is solid.

Mike.

 

[dittle fart around]

Very nice benches. I like the construction of the welding bench. Gotta get a steel top. I'm welding on plywood now, not good. Do you think a metal overlay on the plywood will work, or would I be better off with a thicker top welding only bench?

 

[zmotorsports]

Very nice benches. I like the construction of the welding bench. Gotta get a steel top. I'm welding on plywood now, not good. Do you think a metal overlay on the plywood will work, or would I be better off with a thicker top welding only bench?

It depends on what you will be welding. If you will be using your bench to weld small intricate pieces where you are not generating a lot of heat an overlay steel top will probable be sufficient. However, if you are welding a lot of heavier parts that will be transferring a lot of heat through to the welding table it could start the plywood underneathe on fire.

I prefer the solid steel top but it is a lot more money. I justified the top by finding a lot of used 2" square tubing and buying the casters at a yard sale. I am only into the bottom section about $40.00. The top was much more.

Mike.

 

[KyleQ]

Here is my father's work in progress-



I'll get pictures with the lights on - it's bright. The 3rd attached garage has four 8' duals and the main two car garage has eight 8' duals :O The walls are all perfectly sheet rocked and painted with 6 coats of high gloss white.

 

[PeteMoore]

My 4 hours of labour and baptism of fire introduction to woodwork.

Just completed the main structure tonight at 8pm GMT

 

[dittle fart around]

My 4 hours of labour and baptism of fire introduction to woodwork.

Just completed the main structure tonight at 8pm GMT

Nice notches. I don't mean to criticize your work but it sounds like your new to working with wood. Once you notch a piece of wood and use that smaller portion as an attachment point you have reduced the load capacity to that smaller dimension. Now the notched portion supports all the weight.
The diagonal brace on the top would have been better used straight across the depth of the workbench. It also looks like it was joined together to make it longer. Not a good deal. The diagonal braces on the ends are a novel idea but probably not necessary since the front legs will provide all the support needed for the front edge of the workbench.

Ever read back over an e-mail and wonder why you wrote it? I don't intend to make this sound evil, just thought you might want to improve the structure while at this step in your build.

 

[PeteMoore]

My 4 hours of labour and baptism of fire introduction to woodwork.

Just completed the main structure tonight at 8pm GMT

Nice notches. I don't mean to criticize your work but it sounds like your new to working with wood. Once you notch a piece of wood and use that smaller portion as an attachment point you have reduced the load capacity to that smaller dimension. Now the notched portion supports all the weight.
The diagonal brace on the top would have been better used straight across the depth of the workbench. It also looks like it was joined together to make it longer. Not a good deal. The diagonal braces on the ends are a novel idea but probably not necessary since the front legs will provide all the support needed for the front edge of the workbench.

Ever read back over an e-mail and wonder why you wrote it? I don't intend to make this sound evil, just thought you might want to improve the structure while at this step in your build.

The notched items are also supported side on by the double width front. But just screwed into the front crossmember from the side.

I added the cross brace on the ends purely to stabilise it a little more as all the legs are orientated the same way an there was around 3-4mm of lateral movement. I didn't want the worktop to be doing any structural work within the bench itself.

The 2x2 round the base was meant to be 2x4 but I ran out of motivation for cutting by hand.

Just to clarify, all timber lengths were one piece with no joins to make them longer.

It is literally my first time ever building more than flat packed ikea wood. But the money saved has made me a little more interested in woodwork now, not too much though. Lol

Thanks for your feedback, not one bit of it sounded "evil". Just constructive criticism which is rare nowadays without a **** slinging match kicking off.

 

[wolflrv]

I definitely don't think that bench is gonna go anywhere...LOL! I agree though with dittle...next time on the end joints, notch the vertical corner leg to accept the full width of the horizontal end board. You always want your weight driving down into strength. The vertical leg is your strength. I'd also remove the horizontal cross-brace and put in short spans across the table..like a ladder. That will give you more stability and keep it from racking and sagging. Hope that made sense!

 

[sscustom]

My 4 hours of labour and baptism of fire introduction to woodwork.

Just completed the main structure tonight at 8pm GMT

looking good ,liking the drawers, hows it coming along?

 

[dittle fart around]

It is literally my first time ever building more than flat packed ikea wood. But the money saved has made me a little more interested in woodwork now, not too much though. Lol

Thanks for your feedback, not one bit of it sounded "evil". Just constructive criticism which is rare nowadays without a **** slinging match kicking off.

Spent the weekend at my Father In Law's showing off my skills. Fixed the door to the garage. It worked so well you couldn't open the door any more. To fix the fix I used a ball peen hammer. A couple of wacks did the trick.
Then I assembled a flat packed 6 ft. bookshelf from Target. The bottom section wasn't drilled out for the peg and cam connection. Drilled a hole in the loosely packed particle board. The hole turned out a little larger than needed. Now the only thing holding the sides together is the cardboard back.

 

[countrytech]

Spent the weekend at my Father In Law's showing off my skills. Fixed the door to the garage. It worked so well you couldn't open the door any more. To fix the fix I used a ball peen hammer. A couple of wacks did the trick.
Then I assembled a flat packed 6 ft. bookshelf from Target. The bottom section wasn't drilled out for the peg and cam connection. Drilled a hole in the loosely packed particle board. The hole turned out a little larger than needed. Now the only thing holding the sides together is the cardboard back.

I gave up on that pre-packaged ready to assemble ****. Take a couple pictures of an item you'd like, then build one yourself with better materials. It often ends up costing about the same price to do it yourself but you get a far superior finished product. Plus, it gives a good excuse to buy more tools and score a few points with the wife - their response is much better when you start from scratch vs assemble from a box

 

[Wingnut65]

Here are a couple of my 'Before' shots . . .

This is supposed to be my workbench, but this is how it usually looks.

So, on the right is just a 2x5 counter clamped in a Shop Mate. This is where I do 90% of my work in the workshop.
Besides, this faces the TV.

 

[sscustom]

im building mine as we speak my 3rd one you can check out the build on my youtube channel

 

[PeteMoore]

looking good ,liking the drawers, hows it coming along?

Main bench is now useable. Still to cut and bend the alloy sheet I want to skin it with, going to varnish the worktop about 20 times to try and make it oil and water proof.

Integrated the laptop aswell, the screen was broken, so added a screen USB mouse and keyboard and parked the laptop in the top drawer with all the cables run in flexible conduit.

Looking forward to making the doors now and gonna put a base into it to allow all the stuff stored in it to act as weight against me abusing stuff in the vice.

Thanks for the comments guys.

 

[GN4WHLN]

This one was made from cabinets taken out of our master bathroom. I was going to throw them out when I realized they could make a good bench. They are stained oak, so I lightly sanded them, sprayed it all black, added stainless pulls, put shelves inside it, added electrical and a receiver, and set it on an angle and square tube stand to get it to the right height. I plan on adding a butcher block top to finish it. This thing is a heavy beast.

I have another heavy metal frame bench I have taken apart and am welding together. I am adding receiver tubes, casters, and a thicker metal top. I'll post a pic if I can ever get it finished (as it keeps getting back burnered for other things).

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