Thread: My multiple workbench odyssey - because it's more that a journey

Originally Posted by Bernmc

..story of my life

You would think I could get through a day without a mistake but maybe not, got the 12mm ply sheets out yesterday to cut up for drawers and from the cut list sliced them effectively in half to make them manageable on the table saw.... second round of cuts, sliced the first one on the wrong axis ..... lucky i could use it later in the day

P1060017.jpg

That was all the bits at the end of the day that got pocket holed ready to assemble

I posted about get the frameless cabinet measurement wrong so here's the solution.
P1060019.jpg

Set the entire cabinet on the router table and just removed 3mm each side so it slides into place in the workbench frame.

I watched a quite interesting youtube video that examined a 1900's era folding dining table and one of the things that really stuck was that the maker did not expend ay time or effort on areas that would not be seen and I for one get it.... if you can't see it then it doesn't matter and in this case the shallow rebate will not be seen day to day.

Today was assemble the drawers and start applying some finish so it can dry. Made/cut spacers and jigs for mounting all the drawer slides, thought long and hard about buying the Kreg jig and then couldn't be bothered to go to bunnings

still not sure what to do about drawer fronts yet as the bottom drawers are going to be 240mm deep

After the Friday prattle i got stuck in and got the first half the the drawers in place just waiting on front panels and handles

Here the basic cabinet shell with all the draw slides mounted, I'll replicate this on the left side just 8mm narrower
P1080029.jpg

As I used only a single width (16mm) central divider we staggered the draw slides so the screws would miss each other

P1080032.jpg

The deep bottom drawers are sized to fit 1kg spools of filament for the 3D printer that are the most common diameter.

In memory of the old bench I had the brain wave of making the front panels out of the reclaimed boards from the bench that was there.

These were all ROUGH lumber, untouched by anything except a hammer to put the nails in it seems
P1080034.jpg
This was snapped after a few passes over the jointer and the original sawmill blade marks are quite clear... based on the marks that was one LARGE blade used to dimension these boards in the mill.

P1080035.jpg

One face, one edge completed, sorrow rough face is up in the photo. I dimensioned these to width on the TS after the photo was taken and I just need to thickness them all before glue up.... it was after 7pm by then and to late to fire the screamer up... tomorrows job.

In the middle of that we might unload the pile of timber from the new long bench and finish fitting the initial MDF sheet underlay for the hardwood top.

First half of the this under bench drawer set completed.

The face panels are all panel glue ups from the old work bench boards.

I wasn't making any real effort to match boards up even though some did match happy accident more than anything

P1100037.jpg

I ended up taking these all down to 12mm thick to get rid of 99% of the old saw marks from the rough sawn boards

Even though all the shelf slides were mounted using pre-cut spacers and should have resulted in all drawers being a set distance I ended up cutting every draw front to fit to height.

P1100038.jpg

The drawers are simple 12mm ply (the cheapish stuff) with 600 deep and 380w internal space to fit stuff, all on full extension slides. In the photo above are 3 sizes of the storage trays i print.. 50x50, 50x75 and 100x100

Time to gather thoughts, fill these drawers up and do some more work on the main bench

Cheers
Phil

For lack of any real updates i'll throw a couple of photo's in

As i was cleaning up i opened up a box on a shelf to find a miniature train set, then this little one popped out... nearly fell over
Little Lizard by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

Found this one from early in the process before i started moving benches but after some cleanup... this was sort of the starting point
X7196350.jpg

Originally Posted by Aussiephil

For lack of any real updates i'll throw a couple of photo's in

As i was cleaning up i opened up a box on a shelf to find a miniature train set, then this little one popped out... nearly fell over
Little Lizard by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

Found this one from early in the process before i started moving benches but after some cleanup... this was sort of the starting point
X7196350.jpg

Nice Floor mat, only because we use to have the same.
[emoji6]

Cheers Matt.

After taking a break from working in the garage over the Australia Day period, some semblance of normal returned and i got to finally put the second half of the base top onto the 4.1M long bench that is positioned against one wall. It is free standing but i doubt that once the top is attached and a few machines added this thing will not move.

P1300056.jpg

Even a 3.6m length of MDF was never going to be long enough so I have two sections that form the underlay for the laminated hardwood top, some sections of which you can see in the photo at the far end of the bench. The hardwood top should have a finished height between 53 and 54mm depending how good the final glue up is with bench height at 900mm

I'm starting to think it's just like a giant cutting board as far as glue up

Interesting thread Phil. I'm planning my own upgraded workbench at present so I've mainly been interested in your workbenches. Nice work. I notice you used 2 sheets of 16mm MDF for the top of your mobile bench. I know MDF is used a lot in bench tops, but around here (wet subtropical) it's not so popular as it's easily affected by moisture. I realise if it's in a dry well-sealed workshop and coated with something that's not going to be an issue, but still in previous benches I've built I've gone with what I've seen others do around here, and that is I've used yellow-tongue flooring "Structafloor". I haven't seen it suggested anywhere as a benchtop material but I reckon it's great - smooth, very dense and strong particle board, pretty waterproof without any additional coating. I've just found out the Bunnies has it in 1800 x 800 sheets, pretty good size for a workbench, and I reckon one 19mm thick sheet would do the job just as well as 2 sheets of MDF, with sufficient hardwood framing under it.

Originally Posted by JoshWoody

Interesting thread Phil. I'm planning my own upgraded workbench at present so I've mainly been interested in your workbenches. Nice work. I notice you used 2 sheets of 16mm MDF for the top of your mobile bench. I know MDF is used a lot in bench tops, but around here (wet subtropical) it's not so popular as it's easily affected by moisture. I realise if it's in a dry well-sealed workshop and coated with something that's not going to be an issue, but still in previous benches I've built I've gone with what I've seen others do around here, and that is I've used yellow-tongue flooring "Structafloor". I haven't seen it suggested anywhere as a benchtop material but I reckon it's great - smooth, very dense and strong particle board, pretty waterproof without any additional coating. I've just found out the Bunnies has it in 1800 x 800 sheets, pretty good size for a workbench, and I reckon one 19mm thick sheet would do the job just as well as 2 sheets of MDF, with sufficient hardwood framing under it.

Thanks Josh (I'll assume Josh) , sorry it's so long between updates and progress is slow.

It's weird you know, people say MDF is easily affected yet apart from direct water contact it can be surprisingly tough, even more so if you do what I do these days and soak it with Linseed oil and beeswax. My garage gets a lot of condensation (metal) during winter yet i'm not concerned once it is sealed and I leave un-coated MDF around all the time. I have used that yellow tongue flooring for a xmas light display train table and it stood the test of time, it's even weathered (not too well though) 4 years outside .... mind you all the edges were sealed and it had about 3 coats of external rated paint
I haven't read the specs on yellow tongue for years but i wouldn't consider it waterproof

It was damn heavy though I still think MDF makes a better bench top.... here is why.
MDF is by it's nature a dense and dull material. It's why it's used a lot for sub woofers and speaker cabinets as it doesn't transmit vibrations ... an important point if your banging on your bench... but it does take more than a single layer for a bench.

This is both opinion and some fact

The top layer of the MDF benches is essentially a sacrificial layer and is just normally screwed down... though only once in 20 years can i recall replacing a top layer. The mobile bench is two for this reason, the one under the window is actually 4 layers of chipboard melamine and MDF, the temp router table/outfeed is three layers. The big long bench though will be an exception as the single MDF layer is essentially just there to provide a flat surface to assemble the 54mm thick hardwood top onto. i need to measure it but i think this might be too low yet so may need another layer to just raise the height.

The upshot of all that typing is that depending on the bench use, one 19mm sheet of yellow tongue will work for a general purpose mixed use bench but if it was me I would be looking all the time at 32mm thickness as the minimum hence 2 x 16mm.... 2 x 19 yellow tongue would be solid and heavy but sealing the edges of that stuff is something i hate doing.

btw i have 2 x speaker cabinets built out of bog standard particle board that house 18" bass drivers and are used these days as half of my home theatre sub woofer setup... these cabs are close to 40years old and survived at least 20 years as DJ speakers at parties and pubs coated in nothing more than matt black interior paint, lost count of the spilled drinks over them over the years and honestly they are as solid as the day they got built.

Leave particle board or MDF to soak up water and it will swell and fall apart... wipe it down and keep it reasonable dry and it will usually survive for a long time ... even high relative humidity will not be much impact.

Phil

Use HMR and it will last even longer!

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Phil

Use HMR and it will last even longer!

Regards
Paul

i get the reasoning but my experience is that even without really pampering all the normal stuff outlives it's actual use by/rebuild the unit date. MDF is so maligned that it get's written off as useless if there is moisture around. The truth is it is harder to destroy with moisture than most assume.... this assumes your not letting it soak up water from it's edge or installing it under a unsealed shower

Mind you i think 40years for those speakers is pretty impressive anyway

Well it's been an interesting few weeks and nothing actually progressed very far on doing the top for the main bench. Made a start again on Sat when we started to ensure all hardwood bits to be laminated are flat and parallel on the wide side by starting to run all the boards past the thickness planer, as these are all 19mm thick we start by running a 19mm cut on the grooved side, followed by up to 0.6mm leaving .4mm to go, if i have a full cut, flip the board over with out changing height and run it again, look and if needed run another 0.2mm off then flip and finish at 18.0mm. Most boards are coming out snipe freed.

What i'm still to decide is do I glue this up 1/3 bench width giving about 280mm glued width so they can have another visit through the thicky like you would with a big chopping board ..... each glued section would be 800 to 1200 mm long so that the ends do not align along the bench top.

Well another month has gone past, it's now getting cold overnight, and glue ups are getting harder

Walked into the shed at 10am this and the timber and bench was measuring a really nice 2c ..... had to find a heater to warm things up.

I have been glueing the 60mm wide boards up, 10 wide to give panels around 1500/1600 long, 180mm wide and 60mm thick, about as heavy as I can comfortable lift and move around

Got to put some through the thicknesser today, final thickness is coming out at 56mm

P4240164.jpg
I built a quick outfeed rest so the weight didn't cause major snip and ended up with NO snip on the majority of the ends

Here's a closer view of the finish straight out of the thicky....

P4240163.jpg

Will glue up the last of the boards i have prepared but i already know that i'm going to be short

Cheers
Phil

Just how short of timber i was finally got settled on Sunday night when i laid out all but one panel (glue was drying)
P4250166.jpg

A little bit of pondering, some searching for hardwood that i could source on a public holiday and a trip to Bunnings for some Merbau was booked in... a couple of orange GT racing strips running full length should look good and maybe the bench will be faster.

The next round of glueing started this afternoon after i had cut the Merbau to size. It was fun ripping the 2250mm lengths, had about 100mm clearance on the infeed side, outfeed was fine.

P4260169.jpg

What your seeing is actually the back bottom, the section is upside down and referencing the straight edge on the front of the bench. The plan is to flip that over and use that as the reference edge working towards the front. As the bench is already against the wall and to heavy itself to move with any ease the glue up will get interestingly harder.

Whilst that was drying I again ripped the first glue-ups to be 120mm wide and then glued the remainder back together
This was actually the last piece i needed rip, by this time it's been cut off a longer section, trimmed square both ends and moved around the garage a bit.....

P4260170.jpg
I sort of noticed the defect line before a started cutting, the smallest of pressure from the hands ended up with this...

P4260171.jpg

Originally Posted by Aussiephil

I sort of noticed the defect line before a started cutting, the smallest of pressure from the hands ended up with this...

P4260171.jpg

Phil

I looks like you could just glue that straight back together, but don't leave it too long as sanding is not really practical and it will glue best while the timber is fresh. Perhaps you have already done this.

Regards
Paul