Planing and assembly table

[Driver]

Here's something very basic. I don't have a dedicated workshop (yet!). So I use the back patio. This means that if I want my marriage to survive, I have to clear away my gear after a day's woodworking.

The photo shows a simple planing and assembly table made from an old door, attached at either end to a pair of cheap vice/sawhorse trestles (ex-Bunnies - $29 each) and supported in the middle with a basic sawhorse.

The whole thing can be taken apart in 5 minutes and stored away. It takes no longer to put together.

I use the vice elements of the end trestles to clamp long pieces for planing or sanding - in the same way that you would use the end vice in a real bench. Instead of bench dogs, I just clamp a piece of timber across the table.

It's a decent size - more than 2 metres long by 800 mm wide - which means I can assemble quite large pieces of furniture at a convenient working height.

We're not fancy but we're cheap! (Western Australian joke!)

Regards

Col

[bitingmidge]

On a similar vein, the attached is a very poor photo of my version. Folding legs were $29.00 the pair at Bunnys, the ladder top is salvaged from warped and twisted 45 x 90 pine studs scrounged from a house site and ripped to 45 x 45, but if one wanted to be flash one could buy them new I suppose.

The table "top" is 950 x 2100 and works a treat for almost every imaginable task because things can be clamped in all directions; simple cross-cuts can be made with the resulting two bits straddled across the frame. Cutting sheets is easy, by simply treating the ladder as a sacrificial top, and setting the depth a few mm greater than the material.

It also folds in seconds and is generally handier than all the other saw stool, stands and stuff combined.

We just love it!!

Unfortunately I can't take any credit for the idea but the bloke that thought of it deserves at least a life time subscription to this forum.

Original article online at:
http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/pages/w00035.asp