Thread: Adjustable height work bench?

You can leave the shed door open as you run the bench around and save on the sweeping up.
I think that one is for people with cleaner sheds than me. Good idea all the same.
Regards
John

The destructions at the web site say to just blow the floor clean ahead of where you want to move the bench with compressed air - then air up and hover on over there!.

I was VERY pleasantly surprised to find that the 2 different sized pads - are very reasonably priced at around US$230 - $US300 each!.

Apparently two of the smaller pads - (one each end) should be the go to shift my bench!.

Decent castors that will carry a lot of weight are quite expensive these days...

I am even thinking - that one large pad (29 x 29 inches? 740mm x 740mm) would do my Robland X 31 as well - and obviate the "castor wheeled solution" kits, that are available for them.

Power Tools, Woodworking Tools, Cordless Tools from DeWalt, Makita, Milwaukee and others at AcmeTools.com

Pretty reasonable price & functional when you think about it!

Now I just have to find a air operated height adjustment mechanism, to design the "Ultimate" pneumatic height adjustable, mobile timber workbench!

Originally Posted by Timless Timber

I saw the curved metal fittings that go into the dog holes to pin the workpiece down, on you tube, - they don't look all that user friendly to me... well not so much for electric hand tools work like trimmers and routers etc. They look to me like they might get in the way.
I've always had either flat bench tops or a recessed well in the middle...
No idea where I would get the metal hold downs from anyway.
Maybe it's one of those things - of what your used to using.

did you check out the mens shed post I put a link to earlier

I would build a bench like that but wider with a work surface each side of the 'well'. Also the pegs/ dogs are timber so no harm to the tools if you have a 'run in'

Yes I just had another look thru it tho...

The timber peg hole is what I have on my small bench now... and it (one only) works fine, I could make use of maybe one of these in each corner indeed!

I am thinking that the PRIMARY reason I am building this bench is for assembling mel type cabinets box's so a flat working surface is better than a well - BUT if its adjustable so I can glue up solid panels on it in sash cramps, then maybe a well would be better..

So NOW I am thinking - if the table has to go up and down - maybe the well in the middle has to likewise come flush when lowered and drop to a well when raised! (Insert light bulb icon here).

I want this to be a rather salubrious work bench at the end of the day.... pneumatic ruse and fall and hover mobility...

The hover is a given since its not that expensive.

The pneumatic rise and fall scissor lifts mechanisms however are a different kettle of fish & thus far at least, seem to be out of all proportion costs wise thus far.

But its a big market place out there - no doubt I will find something affordable yet.

Frustrating coz until I do I can't get started, and the materials are already stacked on my saw horses ready to start!

Ohh well.

Thanks be to the Lord.

This is why you cannot rush these things!.



$40 on gumtree today (And a drive half way to the south pole) & now I have my hospital bed hydraulic lift mechanism!.

Yes it's taken me 2 months waiting - but most of the hospital beds I've seen for sale are around the ~ $1000 off - which is too much for a timber work bench lift mechanism!

But wait (not so patiently) I have, and finally the right device has come along at a price I can afford (this week).

Now I can send away for the hover pads next!

I am still after a plans cabinet drawer system to incorporate as well...for thin tools (As BobL showed me in his bench).

I'm getting there - albeit slowly... a few weeks holidays for the missus and I away up the coast at Kalbarri ate up some of the disposable $ resources and time...which is partly why this stuff takes me so long (being a fat lazy #### is the other part).

Bench first - cyclone next....

Then?

Well there's this seaside block at Kalbarri with expansive views that looked affordable & caught our eye....

Been "researching tilt" panel concrete double story homes designs....

Be a shame to have to build yet another workshop and move everything, BUT..... the place is a fishing mecca and I could at least get some use out of the boat again... trips across to the Abrolhos Islands... a home with nice views.

Decisions, decisions.

Nice to see this resurface.

Next will be the build thread

Congrats on the find


Dave

The Turning Cowboy

Yes there will eventually be a build thread!
Can't say when - coz I tend to get side tracked from time to time.
Also I don't rush things these days.
I enjoy the luxury of taking my time to design stuff in my head with 2 or 3 iterations before I embark on the build.
Theres any mumber of scissor lift jacks etc I've seen and rejected, which would have done the job OK, BUT - they just didn't "feel" right... for how I want it to turn out. I guess, coz I am the one has to use it, I want it to be a pleasure to use and find it hard to compromise in order to rush things.
earlier in my life I'd have compromised and rushed and not been totally happy with the results but just grin and bear it.
These days I am trying (and succeeding to some limited extent) to spoil myself a little more.
I figure I only get one go round so might as well hang out in my later years for things how I want them.
Time will tell if this is a good idea - good chance time will run out before I've done all i want to do BUT life's a lot less stressed these days.
It could be a long build thread!

I dont know which I like better, the lift or the block. The fishing up that way is the best.

Yes indeed, tis a tough place to spend a few days...



Cuisine in the place ain't too bad, if you can set and pull a pot or two.

And the views along the coast there - are pretty spiffy too - I THINK I could MAYBE get accustomed to them!.





And tis only a couple hours hop (on a good day) across to the Houtman Abrolhos Islands... for a spot of fishing.













There's plenty worse places to spend a little quality time.

It's a hard hard life


Dave

The Turning Cowboy

good gawd thats a frightening pic.

2 beautiful and 2 rank ugly

2nd pic ....its a little crowded ...where you ya put the boat people????

Those pictures bring back some great memories.

Deys all boat people on that Island.... only way to get there is by boat .

Well almost - cray fisher I know....who has 5 of those huts, was out there in his boat a few seasons back - 54 N Miles from Geraldton pulling his pots minding his own business when he spots the top of a sail off in the distance.... not uncommon out there, a few yachts and big sailing cats stop by the Abrolhos for shelter occasionally on their way up or down the coast.



Bit by bit as he is working his line of pots it gets closer.

Eventually it sailed right up to his boat & turned out to be a guy on a sailboard!

Pulls up alongside the cray boat and shouts out words to the effect "hey mate - you seen them Abrolhos Island thingy's anywhere round here?".

They got him off his wind sail board thing and into the cray boat....along with this board and its sail... finished pulling all their pots and took him back to Big Pigeon island with them - eventually putting him and his board and sail on the cray carrier/supply ship back to Geraldton the next day.

His "mates" back on shore had bet him $50 he couldn't wind surf out to the Abrolhos Islands!. (Told him there's 122 of them and you can't miss em).

He had zero nav gear at all bar the sun setting in the west & figured that would be enough to be able to find these offshore islands and find his way back no worries.

It takes all sorts - you just never know what you will see next when out at sea.

Guys mates had reported him 'missing' to local Geraldton Plod when he sailed off over the horizon and didn't come back, so by the time he got back to Port on the carrier boat the next day, Plod were waiting for him - with a bill for the sea search & rescue mission they had launched to look for him, before getting the call from the Islands to be told he had been found "safe" (but really tired).

There's a new Darwin candidate seemingly born every day!

Originally Posted by Tonto

good gawd thats a frightening pic.

2 beautiful and 2 rank ugly

2nd pic ....its a little crowded ...where you ya put the boat people????

Yes indeed - welcome to "the breaker brothers" - Bud Spencer & his half brother Terrence Hill!

"Trouble Twins" is their middle names......Co Directors of "Head in the Cloud, ass in the gutter, R US enterprises Inc" - creators of such fine products as "Baitrack for men" - actually discovered/invented during that trip to the Abrolhos Islands.

Our camp was about 10 feet from the bait drying rack - where all the salmon heads for bait are dried prior to being put into the pots as holding baits every few days. Being 50+ NMiles offshore - there are no flies out there. So the heads just rot in the sun and ooze their salmon oil, as a sort of glaze which drips down from rack to rack.... and creates the most awful dead fish pong you can imagine... which with the wrong wind direction, wafts thru your camp (hut) all day and night!

It was so powerful - we concluded that it HAD to be useful for something, so over a few tinnies after tea one night "Bait rack for men" deodorant idea was conceived...

The idea being - you put the inlet for the compressor direct under the bait rack and compress and condense that smell into aerosol cans...

Every man about town will buy 1 or 2 cans & keep em in the glove box for that occasional unavoidable night on the ran tan about town with the boys involving strong liquor & fast wimmin!

On your way home at 4 am with a size 12 headache / hangover..... and lipstick on your collar, you whip out the trusty can of "baitrack for men"...from the glove box, apply liberally under each arm...

When you stumble inside and she who swings the frypan asks "& Where do you think YOU have been all night until this ungodly hour?" - you answer her truthfully "out on the ran tan around town with the boys consuming copious quantities of hard liquor and entertaining all the fast, loose wimmin's we could find!"...

Then she catches just one whiff of "baitrack for men" and says "Don't lie to me you scurvy sea dog - I KNOW you've been out fishing all night with your scaly fishing buddies again!".

Problem solvered!.

Thus was born the first ever product brought to you by HITCAITGRUS Enterprises inc.

We expect our first IPO to go public - probably sometime after the NEXT fishing trip to the Houtman Abrolhos Islands - some of our best work (finest ideas) seemed to get done out there.

I'm sure we have all been there at some point.