Old workbench retrofit

**turpene** · 27th May 2017, 03:58 PM

So a fortnight or so ago, I cleared out the shed and found an old workbench -

It's a nice, heavy and solid Jarah build which is probably 20 years old. Problem was, the surface was far from level. Four thick Jarrah boards lay across the top, with enough gap between them to lose bolts down. One of the middle boards was loose, and each had a slightly different thickness and warping. Mostly they'd been bolted to the frame (no countersink) with a mix of 10mm, 11mm and 12mm tek screws, and some nails in one of the corners. One of the screws had no head, and was a great excuse to buy a blowtorch to help loosen it with heat.

The frame was also a little less than square -

There was also no support in the centre along the length (it's footprint is 1870mm x 705mm). I had a piece of laminated mdf I wanted to use as the top, but it's dimensions were only 1800 x 630mm, almost small enough to fall through (only the legs in the corner saved it). To solve this, I cut out a few dados to lay down 20mm square steel sections -

I put in 6 total (2 more near the legs after the photo above). With the mdf now nicely supported and level, I needed something to hold it in place (and to hide the not so square leg joins). I cut up some mitres on 65mm x 19mm Pine to close the gap between the frame and the mdf, holding it in place -

I sealed the raw sides of the mdf with 50% water 50% PVA, and put a coat of Scandanavian oil on the pine. Should be able to get 3 on before the weekend ends, and put it all together.

**Handyjack** · 27th May 2017, 06:09 PM

Its an old bench with character. Good work with the top.
I see that it has a double socket outlet (power point) on the front. This should strictly be wired in by a suitably qualified person which will mean the bench must be fixed. At the very least confirm the soundness of the wiring if you intend to use it.

**turpene** · 27th May 2017, 08:22 PM

I removed the wiring earlier today. Cables were degraded, and would need to be replaced anyways (I've got a mate who's qualified). I didn't intend to rig it up though, I don't like the positioning. When I get serious I'll have him wire in some 15A powerpoints, for now I'm just running a 25m cable reel.

While waiting for the oil to dry, I decided to replace the lower shelf, which resembled particle board, with some jarrah floor board offcuts picked up free off gumtree -

**Handyjack** · 28th May 2017, 10:33 AM

**george mavridis** · 28th May 2017, 10:41 AM

That will be one sold workbench when it's finished, nice work.

I wish mine was as easy to fix but they used slotted angle for the legs frame and chipboard for the top. I've braced it as best I can and it works well for now. If I get to the point where it irritates me or I just have time I'll pull it out and build a solid one.

**turpene** · 10th June 2017, 09:41 PM

My plan was to use this to build another once I had the shed sorted, with some machinery. I did the last bit of putting things together today, and just cleaned up my first bit of old Jarrah, but getting too late to do more. In the last fortnight, the workbench has done it's job well, so I won't work on replacing it yet. Probably build a router table instead, cos I hate balancing the plunge doing roundovers.

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