Work Bench

[Vin]

I am looking into work bench designs for my garage based shop. I do a fair amount of automotive repair work as well as some wood working. I would mount at least one vise (metal) on it,, and I am sure I will take to beating on it with a hand sledge from time to time,, driving out a bushing etc,,,,,, I will probably cover a portion of it with 1/8' steel plate.

The dimensions will be eight feet long by at least thirty inches wide.

I am considering using two by fours on edge to make the table,, glued and screwed.

Any thoughts on a good solid rugged table?

It ain't gotta be pretty!!

thanks,

Vin

[Bill Thomas]

Greetings,

Think about where the force will go from your pounding spot. You may want to reinforce the area, use a better material than particle board, and position a leg of the bench directly under it. I have seen pictures an old table with the tenon of the leg going up through the bench top so the workman could pound directly on top of the leg.

S> I am looking into work bench designs for my garage based shop. I do a fair

[Richard Clements]

3/4 AC plywood two layers deep total thickness 6/4 and you can bang on it all day with a 15 lbs sledge and then some maybe use 2x4 to stiffen it up

V> I am looking into work bench designs for my garage based shop. I do a fair

[Mark L.]

[Greg]

My wife is throwing away an 8-0 door as we speak so they are around. Unfortunately it is faux 6 panel steel, not flat or I would have it.

[bridger]

I built my BIL an automotive bench. framed the legs and rails like a floor. bolted it to the wall. "joists" 16" on center. double layer of

3/4" ply glued and screwed top. still solid 6 years later.

[Mike Marlow]

This is pretty much the route I took when I built my bench 10 years ago, but I didn't go quite this heavy. I used 4x4's for my front legs and 2x4's to frame the top in, with framing every two feet between the front and the back rails. The back and one side are anchored to the wall and sit on 2x4 cleats that run along the wall under them. The front face of mine is has three drawers on one end, a rack of drawers on slides in the center and an open area for a roller cart to fit in under the other end. The area where the three drawers are is framed (combination of 2x4 and 2x2) and those are covered over with dimensional lumber. I used dimensional lumber just because I had it and I like the look more than using plywood. The top of my workbench is nothing more than 7/16 OSB screwed down to the top frame. The workbench itself is 8 feet long and 2 feet deep.

My workbench gets a workout. What really testifies to the strength of my workbench is the amount of clutter it seems to be subject to. Damn - one of us should come up with a workbench that just isn't flat - until you need it. I do a lot of automotive work - repairs and body work, as well as woodworking, and general fix it stuff. I've got a big vise on one end - the end that the roller cart fits under and it gets a work out. Things get heated up there, bent there, beat on there, and of course the vise often makes a handy place to set down a cup of coffee for just a minute. We have manhandled some awful stuff on that vise and never once saw a moment of weakness.

What I lack - and someday I'll fix this problem, is a small steel table to weld and cut on. Right now I do most of that on the floor or on a pair of horses and this is only a marginal solution at best. In my opinion, you should have two tables - one for the dirty stuff like welding and one for other stuff. Both can collect junk, but you really don't want to worry about things that should not be getting grimey coming into contact with grimey stuff. I wouldn't go the route of making both functions a part of the same work bench.

Well - that's my story.