Thread: New bench v1.0

It maybe a bit late but for this now but I reckon a type of quick and very strong bench construction, that also allows for easy tightening and/or complete knock down, .
uses a single thru bolt joint, see Small bench,

Nice bench ManU07, you'll get good use out of it. Very similar to my first bench (1500x700), made from 70x35 kerbside collections complimented with some 90x45 pine from BGS - put together using bolts, screws, and liquid nails(!) with minimal joinery (lap joints). Though the build quality on mine looks very agricultural compared to yours.

I used to station my chop saw on the bench and use the spare real estate for general tinkering when starting with the hobby. Does the job well enough and it's still in use. However, I found it to be too light and not adequately sturdy for hand tool woodworking - the bench starts wobbling and racking during sawing/planing. Hence I recently built a separate bench for that purpose.

Andy

Thanks Andy - i got held up last weekend so haven't made any progress since this post yet but i do have a plan in mind to allow me to remove the mitre saw and insert a cap in its place to have 1 full surface when needed. Time will tell if it works well or not! I do have some concerns over whether this will have enough mass/heft as well but it certainly is sturdy so hoping when everything is fitted it might just have enough mass to do the trick.

Been very busy of late but managed a few hours on the weekend to do a bit more on this.

1. Simple job to add those castors that are on a camber so that I can engage the castors as needed. Works a treat. With the the castors disengaged its solid on the floor. (bought the castors from H&F) - first pic below
2. Cut and fit the top. For this i chose MDF this time around, i'm not sure that was the absolute best choice but it is a nice surface and is cheap. as mentioned in the first post, i have designed this so it can be pulled apart and reconfigured easily so i figure if i have to replace the top in a year then that's fine. I basically just cut some small pieces from offcuts that i fixed to the frame and then screwed in to the top from the bottom. This way the surface is nice and clean and no screw holes. The second pic shows the top on, the cutout in the middle will support a shelf so that the mitre saw sits level with he bench top and is easily removable.

Next steps are:
1. Add some vertical supports in the middle to ensure a nice level top, i guess the downside of using cheap pine for the frame is that there is a bit of a dip through the middle but a few simple supports should give me a nice flat surface.
2. Build in the shelf for the mitre saw and an insert to fit into the top for when the mitre saw is not fitted.
3. Cut and fit some ply for the bottom shelf

Long term:
1. Add a vice to the right hand side
2. Build a removable shelf on the left hand side that will extend the table out by another 400-500mm.
3. Allow the said shelf to be fitted at a lower height so the table saw can sit on there and use the bench as an outfeed table
4. Add t-track and mitre saw fence etc
castors.jpg


Top on.jpg