The Really Kick-ass Workbench

As well as square skulls, all four of us brothers inherited from Dad a tendency to build things...solidly. To be accused of building something in a flimsy fashion, unless the object in question in a single use sun-shade, is a personal insult that cuts deeply.

Fortunately we also inherited from Mom a certain degree of empathy, both for the people who will eventually use the things we build, and for the machines and tools we use in the process of building.

One place where the quest for solidity can be left free to run it's terrible course without detracting from the eventual product is in a work bench. A couple of people having at this point asked me how they should go about building a really solid work bench, I thought I'd put down a few paragraphs on the subject. <-Dang, I love having a web-site to rant from!

I built this bench mostly out of scavenged materials, because I'm cheap. There's also a couple of things I would have done differently, if I was doing it again. The instructions I give below assume you're willing to pay to get most of the materials, and include what I believe to be are lessons learned. The pictures shown are from the bench I built.

First thing you'll need is an area of the house where the concrete foundation wall comes up to at least 40" off the ground. This concrete wall will form the basis of the whole structure. If you don't have such an area in your garage/workshop, then this design won't work for you, but through creativity you may still be able to use some of the ideas. Note that the cantilevered 4x4 legs are not solid enough to allow this to be used as a free-standing workbench. They'd need some additional bracing.

The basic structure here is going to be a periperal frame of 2x6 lumber, 4x4 corner posts, and a plywood top. The details will, of course, vary depending on the space you have to work with, but the general concept is the same.

In rough order:

  1. Decide on the table top size/placement. Things to think about are:

  2. Now that you know what you want to build, you go and buy/scavenge the materials:

  3. Rock bolt the member of the peripheral frame making up the back of the bench to the wall every 12" or so (Solid!). Hint: Drill 1/2" dia holes in the 2x6 first, nail that peripheral member to two of the legs to hold it at the right height, and then drill the holes in the concrete using the holes in the 2x6 as a template. No missmatch this way.

  4. Remove the legs from the back 2x6 and glue and screw two of the stubs to the ends of that 2x6. These form the joint for the frame's side peripheral members. Once the glue is set, put the board back on the wall, insert the bolts, and tighten the 2x6 to the wall.

  5. Build up the rest of the frame.Put one leg at each away-from-wall corner, and one in about the position on the outer edge you want the vise to be. Use the hangers to support the inner cross members, but use holes drilled through the legs/stubs and the 3/8 bolts to attach the peripheral frame, and central (vise) crossmember to the legs. Use glue on the leg-to-frame joints. The connection between the vise cross member and the back 2x6 can be an ordinary hanger.

    Seen from underneath this is the bench frame, with the welder (heavy old beast!) and it's control switch power supply in the background. Note that the back beam I used was 2x4's instead of 2x6, as I was running out of 2x6's (also the reason I had to join a couple of 2x6's together to bridge the front span. Note the 4x4 stubs used for the rear joints.

  6. Once the frame is set up, spread glue on the tops of each of the 2x6's and place the first top sheet down on to it. Use the 2" long robertson screws to hold this first plate solidly to the 2x6's all around.
  7. Use up a couple of tubes of glue doing pop-tart icing patterns on the top of the first plate. Once you've squeezed out a good 1/2 litre of glue, pop the second plate on top of the first, and speckle it in a fairly regular (8" centre or so) pattern of the 1.25" long screws.

Be aware that this is now a very solid wooden structure, and that you're going to have an unspeakably rotten time of it if you ever decide to remove it. On the other hand, you can hammer on this thing to your heart's content, and you know it's never going to shift, or bounce, of flex.

This thing is a permanent addition to the house.

Every good work bench needs a vise. From experience I can say that the ordinary 4" wide vises sold by Canadian Tire are a fairly good choice. Regular price is $50CDN, but you can get them for $20CDN if you wait for the sales, which are fairly regular. Here's a pic.

A swivel vise sounds like a nice idea, but personally I've never found the swivel function to be useful enough to make up for it's annoying habit of swivelling when you don't want it to, regardless of how tight you bang the little handles with a hammer.

Accordingly, when I mounted a vise on my workbench I did the following:

When it's all said and done, and the smoke clears, it should look something like this:

Actually, speaking of smoke... Now's a good time to go buy yourself a fire extinguisher and mount it in a readily accesible location near one of the doors that leads into the room where you keep this workbench. You may never need it, but in case the need arises you don't want to be without one.

Now you may be wondering what the metal tab sticking down is for. Why it's for attaching the welder's ground clamp, silly. One gets somewhat better current carrying by hooking the ground clamp up directly to the work, but I've always found the convenience of the vise connection to outweigh the touchier arc.

Congradulations. You now have a very solid work bench, with a vise that isn't going to come off it no matter how hard you pry. The steel plate also makes a handy protected surface that catches the brunt of the abuse that seems to centre itself on the vise when welding or cutting.

I also went and bolted a little drill press to one end of this bench, and a bench grinder to the other. Quite convenient.

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