If You Were Just Setting-up How Wide Would You Make Your Workbench?

**kando** · 5th January 2005, 08:45 PM

G’day all

Bill from Geelong back again seeking more ideas/advice.

I built a 12m L x 6m W x 3m H workshop years ago but it is now so full of junk I can hardly get it the place, I also have four large tables against the walls and at 1m wide the tables are too wide to work on comfortably, plus one is an all-steel welding table.

I’m thinking of removing the 25mm chipboard tops from my existing tables and cutting the steel frame down to about 40cm, then cutting the chipboard to suit and making a long workbench of 40cm wide…what do you think?:confused:

As I’m just setting-up for working with timber I think this would be a good time to get the views of others on what size and how would they build their workbenches differently for ease of use. If I go sticking things in Willie-Nelly; you can bet your life at sometime down the track (sooner rather than later) I’ll be cussing myself for not planning where things should have gone!

To help you advise me, picture this, I have a 12m x 6m workshop but I plan to use only the front 9m X 6m section as my timber workshop.
I would like to place my new Hitachi Compound mitre saw on its own adjustable bench (I have bought the bench already) along the outside wall under a large window, (The power supply is just under that window) with another permanent workbench to the left of my saw-bench/stand. The longest pieces I will have to cut would be for 4m trusses.
Anyway…what width or how deep would you make your workbench top and how high would you make the bench? The saw bench is 950mm high so I guess the adjoining work bench work bench would also have to be 950mm high.

I plan to use the other wall for storing timber and to house my compressor so I’ll have to build a steel storage rack for holding the timbers…the compressor will just have to sit on the floor

.
If I do things like this I will have a clear floor space in the centre of the shop for assembly work, an area of around 4.5m W X 9m L.

Thanks for your helpful advice, it's great to have somewhere to bounce ideas around and ask advice without those being asked for advise coming back with: That will never work, you're just wasting money...at your age you should forget it!
Then if a person does nothing...they're classed as lazy bums who won't try! A bloke just can't win with some folk

. So it's good to have a place like the Woodworkers Forum where a person can seek unbiased advice.

Cheers mates and thanks again,

Bill from Geelong...kando...with a little help from my friends

.

**Dion N** · 5th January 2005, 09:17 PM

Bill

Why not take a look at your kitchen and see how you find the bench space there. You'll find that most kitchen benches are around 600-700mm wide, which is about right for the average person. Bench height is usually around 900mm, but if you are building the bench just for you, the height should be a bit below your elbows with your forearms parallel to the ground. If you bench is lower than this, you will be bending over every time you are working with something lying flat on the bench or in the vice.

**kando** · 5th January 2005, 10:37 PM

G'day Dion N,

Thanks for that great tip, I never thought of using our kitchen workbence as a guide

.
I went and measured the workbench and the height, the workbenchs are 600 wide and stand 900 from floor to bench top...that height suits me just fine so I'll go with that

.

Thanks again mate.

Bill from Geelong...kando...With a little help from my friends

.

**soundman** · 6th January 2005, 12:05 PM

I have always had a liking for nice big work benches & in electronics a 1200 wide bench is great (you have to get some test gear on there as well as the job) so when I came to build new a timber workbench I went big. After a few years I found It was a pain in the neck, took up valuable room & just acumulated junk at the back, I also made the mistake of fitting the vices away from the ends.
A while ago that bench went on a diet & its much happier at about 600 deep and about 1500 long with a vice at each end.
cheers

**bsrlee** · 6th January 2005, 11:18 PM

Go to the library, or perhaps the Technical Bookshop in Melbourne for browsing, and have a look at some of the recent flood of how-to-set-up-your-workshop books.

Heaps of good ideas & advice, plus what-I-did-wrong stuff in some of them. For instance - you compressor can go almost anywhere on a shelf or brackets up on the wall, leaving the lower wall & floor for machinery, benches & storage areas. Ditto dust suckers.

There are also a few sets of cut-out planning templates & grids for you to play around with in the books & the recent 'Shops & Tools' issue of FWW

**kando** · 7th January 2005, 01:17 AM

G'day folks,

I hear you loud and clear soundman, that's exactly what's happened in my workshop, nice big wide benches/tables and I've culminated so much junk on top of them I can no longer use them

.

As for your great tip of doing some research in the library in Melbourne bsrlee, that's out of the question.

I would have to drive to Melbourne, find a place to park that didn’t charge me as though I was staying for a week at the Hilton, then do the research at the library and drive back to Geelong...that would be an all day trip for me and I just can't be away from home all day, I'm my wife’s carer and she needs me at home but!...you have given me ideas! I'll do the research online!

.

I was going to cut down the large steel tables I have and weld the up again at 600mm wide but I have just had a new kitchen put in so I'll salvage the old kitchen cabinets and workbenches, they're in the shed anyway, for my shop!

As to placing my compressor on a shelf or hanging it from a bracket on a wall...I don't think so bsrlee, my compressor is just to heavy for that...I'm a one-man-band and I could never in a fit lift it up and down but I have, or will have a lot of free space, so it can go in the corner where I always housed my compressors in the past.

Thanks for all your helpful tips...I will do some research before putting the old kitchen cabinets and workbenches in.

Cheers mates,

Bill from Geelong...kando...with a little help from my friends

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