Workbench to Get the Job Done!

Thanks for posting your plans. I've been wanting to build a work bench, but I haven't seen any plans I like until now. Also, great job on the plans; they're very clear and straight forward.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikgomez/6255316898/in/photostream

I built this before I heard about your site on Core77. Looks similar!

There are some very good plans available at finewoodworking.com and popularwoodworking.com. They're all designed to be easy to build and relatively inexpensive.

My favorite that I saw was what they called the Newfangled Workbench. Through clever use of pipe clamps they build nice vices into their workbench without paying hundreds of dollars.
That's not the bench I ultimately built, but it was pretty cool, and if I did more power tool work I probably would have built that one.

What I ended up doing with this bench was a bit of an add-on process. Add this on, take this off :P I was tired of running out of room by the time I had my vices on the bench, and had no room left for all my power tools. Now, what I have, is convenience :D Since this bench was made for convenience & not portability, it gets to be a hassle moving it from workshop to the home gym that I'm remodeling. Instead of building two (wife would kill me), I decided to make it a bit easier to move. We all want space for our mitre saws, our jig saws, our table saws, I could really go on forever. So the best work-around I found for this, was dog holes and bolts :D Set your mitre saw on the table, find out where works best, then pop a hole through the table. Do the same for your table saw, etc. Every benchtop tool I've ever seen has guide holes to mount to your bench. So, it's a bit of a hassle unscrewing that wing-nut from the bolt, but it's a hell of a lot better than having all your tools fixed to the top of the table, and no where to cut the wood. Most of my tools, while not in use, conveniently sit on the shelf below. This way, when I go to move the bench, I take the tools off of it, and it's a lot lighter :D

I also added a outfeed roller to the end of it out of pvc pipe & conduit. I'll post plans for that soon, because it's so much easier than telling the wife, "hey, hold that, ok now feed it to me, NO NO NO don't move it " hehe

I can tell you where you found this plan. It came from the EAA Chapter 1000 website. http://www.eaa1000.av.org/technicl/worktabl/tablefig.htm. Originally published June 1992. Your drawings and cut list were taken right from the listed URL. The building instructions are there too if you would like to post them and take credit for that also. This is plagiarism at its best.

I hardly consider this plagiarism when I specifically state that these plans were NOT created by me. If you have trouble reading,

"I couldn't remember where I had originally stumbled across the plans, but I wrote the dimensions down at the time. I believe they are all accurately depicted to the plans I had originally found."

As you can see in my original post/plans/description, whatever you want to call it, I clearly stated this. I go through 100 plans (at least) the night before I decide I want to build something the following day. I then right click, save image as, and throw it into a folder. If I manage the time, and like what I see in the folder that day, I build it. Some things I make & create myself, but most are copies of something I liked that I saw online. Had, I have written down the site, I MOST DEFINITELY WOULD HAVE POSTED THE PLANS WORD FOR WORD...would have been MUCH easier than typing it out.

I'm not a carpenter by profession, much less someone who sells what they make. So you, by stating the obvious, are just someone who wants to get into an online argument that I am well above.

P.S. Guess what, I saw the outfeed roller on another plan for a sawhorse..guess that makes me a bad, bad guy for taking the initiative and building it myself & sharing with the others!

And, for the record, I was 5 in 1992. HAHA

Oh hey, I found the original plans:
http://www.eaa1000.av.org/technicl/worktabl/tablefig.htm
Thanks Bob Waldmiller, YOU ROCK!

And thanks "blakeallan" for the additional instructions and actual project photos. I know a lot of time and work went into this post.
If you had not found and updated these plans I would never have seen them.

Wow, that was easy! I just gave you info about the original post and I didn't have to be rude about it! :) Obviously you had no intention of "plagiarizing" Bob Waldmiller's (20 y/o) plans. I hope other posters don't discourage you from continuing to share great plans.

Hey, thanks for that! I cannot begin to tell you how aggravating it is to type up something like this with my schedule, and then have some arrogant poster throw in his two cents. I've found a few plans on here useful, so I thought I'd throw a few plans on here I deem useful as well. Some things I make myself, some things I take from other sites, photo galleries, etc. I could understand had I put "This is my plan, I created it, end of story", but I was quite frank in saying I couldn't remember where I had pulled this from. I changed a few things to "make it my own" or accommodate my needs better, but there's really only so many variations one can do of a wooden workbench. Truth be told, the original poster was probably not the first one to ever do it. Wood has been around for quite a few years haha :D

Right now, we're remodeling a unit from the ground up. I needed a place closer to my school as it's a busy year, so we rented out our condo & decided to rent a place within the same compound as the school. So we've got a 365 square space inside 4 walls. That's it. We tore the roof off, we're raising the ceilings to 17 ft, and extending the unit just a bit. Overall dimensions are 27ft x 13.5 ft. It was the biggest unit available here & I wasn't happy about it. So, I sat down for a week solid, learned CAD, and now I have a two story mezzanine being built. It should give us about 550-600 square feet of living space which is more than enough considering it's a sleeping zone for the most part. We've included an exposed shower, a brand home gym (we're talking every piece of equipment you could imagine), and an all glass window front going 17 ft high. I went for a very modern,industrial design & it's all out of metal. exposed i-beams, corrugated metal, the works.

Will post pics in about another 2 months haha :D

Cheers

this is such a neat bench I am making it myself as my first project to be able to make custom furniture for my home :)

Hey, good luck wih that, and I cannot say that I envy you at the moment :-D. We're currently remodeling & decided to go the same route. Ohhhhhhh, I wish we hadn't haha. Maybe, had we not been on such a tight deadline, it would have been fun :-p.

All the best

So I'm new to woodworking. I have made a couple do picture frames and a box. I have table top tools (miter saw, table saw, router table) and I've been wanting to build a workbench. I found some great plans and was convinced they were the ones I'd use. Well... Until I saw this tonight. I like this much better and I too wanted to have shelf underneath to store the tools. I have limited space so I do all my work outside. I need to be able to wheel my workbench in and out of the garage. It looks simple enough to just add wheels to bottom. I guess I would just need to subtract the height of the wheels from the bottom? I plan on getting the locking casters. Any input would be great.

So I'm new to woodworking. I have made a couple do picture frames and a box. I have table top tools (miter saw, table saw, router table) and I've been wanting to build a workbench. I found some great plans and was convinced they were the ones I'd use. Well... Until I saw this tonight. I like this much better and I too wanted to have shelf underneath to store the tools. I have limited space so I do all my work outside. I need to be able to wheel my workbench in and out of the garage. It looks simple enough to just add wheels to bottom. I guess I would just need to subtract the height of the wheels from the bottom? I plan on getting the locking casters. Any input would be great.

Oh.... And I don't care where the plan came from:)

Hey, you're on the right track. I've built a couple of these & I chopped about 3 inches off the bottom in the initial cutting. I used big stainless steel casters that nearly covered the bottom of the leg ( both 2x4s ).. I was lucky to find them, and I didn't want to put the caster just on one of the 2x4s. I doubt that putting a small caster centred on the bottom of the leg will hurt any, but not planning to build another anytime soon, I decided I'd take the high road & cover as much surface area on the bottom of the leg as I could for bracing. If your casters are smaller & you can't find the bigger ones where you live, you could always 1/2" to 1" plywood square on the bottom of the legs, and then drill you caster into that. At least you've have a brace if you can't come across the casters like I've found. And yes, I'd definitely recommend locking casters because the regular ones have wheels that only turn when you don't want them to haha.

One last thing, you might want to see if you can find adjustable height wheels if yo has an uneven or rugged floor/garage.

You certainly have a way to explain things to make everything look easy! I could use such a workbench for my welding supplies storage so starting next week I'll have it built. I really hope it will look just as good as this one!

Hey there,
Great plans! Thanks for sharing them. I was wondering if you've had time to put together more info on the outfeed rollers you added later. I would love to know more about them. Thanks!

Thanks for the plan, Anna. Simple and very sturdy. I tweaked the plan to yield a lip on the top that can be clamped to by reducing the 21" supports to 20".