The garage workbench

[Guest Alphonsox]

Time to think about construction of a workbench in the garage.

Height - 1m

Depth - 0.65-0.7m

Length 8.4m !

 

I'm thinking of making it out of 9x2 or 8x3 joists, but am also considering railway sleepers.

Anyone got any thoughts or inspiration (I'm not keen on kitchen worktops as a solution)

[Onoff]

DON'T bolt to the wall! Have it freestanding.

 

Not a good idea if you're bashing the granny out of something it'll vibrate the walls and shelves.

[Construction Channel]

as its such a long length, could you consider laminating a narrower timber between sheets of ply?

[ProDave]

Oh if I could have my time again.

 

The Lab where I used to work was "modernising"  I lost count of how many of the 8ft long, 3ft deep solid oak workbenches I took home for just about everybody I knew. They were free to employees on a firewood chit.

 

I left one behind in our house in Oxfordshire so I am down to my last one, that will be moving from our old house up to the new once a soon as I get a door on the garage.

[Declan52]

I made mine out of left over scaffold planks

[dpmiller]

racking?

 

https://www.rackzone.ie/workbench/industrial-work-bench-1850x900x800

[Dee J]

Challenging thought. One long bench will look great, but is it really most useful...... How about several separate dedicated benches. One freestanding heavy one with a big vice. A lower one for machine tools. A classic woodworking bench and an electronics bench with a laminate top set for a good sitting height. Dedicated workstations according to the work in hand.... luxury.

[MikeSharp01]

See if you can avoid making it flat front to back, better to have lower portion in the middle, tool well IIRC, to gather stuff that won't get knocked off and put tools down that are below the workpiece resting across the gap. I made my site bench with 4 x 2 and 25mm OSB for the top at the back and 25mm ply for the front - smoother, both sitting on a 12mm OSB sheet (so tool well only 25mm deep - could be deeper). Also drilled some holes to take the workmate stops to keep things in their place. Tops are sacrificial so make sure you bury any screws used to clamp it down or you will hit them when you run the skil saw set to 0.25mm deeper than the work piece.

[Alexphd1]

Overkill but a bit of imagination it could work very well! Key klamp tube+ fittings (or equivalent) and scaffold boards. I also plan to make shelves in garage with same material. 

[Ferdinand]

Make it in small enough pieces, perhaps bolted together, so that you can get it out again for your next place - if there might be one.

 

Keep an eye out for closing down shops, garages etc. Or put a request for the top surfaces on FreeCycle?

 

We once (mother special) obtained a huge thick marble top from a butchers shop (8-10 ft long, 2 inches thick) when mum was buying meat and it was being removed - "I'll have that!". Took 4 men to put in the van, stuck out the back, and it was only removed by dad tying it to a tree and driving away. Supplied marble bits and pieces for years.

 

F

 

Edited November 3, 2017 by Ferdinand

[ToughButterCup]

Scaffold poles, scaffold planks, left over ply.

[Onoff]

My first bench I made maybe 30 years ago has a frame made from 70x70 par. All the joints are half or through housings.

 

It's topped with salvaged 6"x3"s and has a replaceable hardboard top.

 

The big mistake was continuing the 70x70 frame up at the back with again 70x70 horizontal members. I backed this with ply and screwed loads of component draws to it. Every time I was beating Hell out of something on the bench the draws would rattle & vibrate open. 

[Jeremy Harris]

My benches have always been salvaged teak worktops from old labs (like @ProDave I "inherited" a few of them from Farnborough, years ago).  The support for the main bench is a steel welded box section frame that I originally made back in around 1983 to hold a steel oil tank, inside our (then very large) garage).  When I scrapped the oil system and gave the tank to my brother I kept the steel frame, which has been ideal for a bench, with one exception.  As @Onoff says, don't fix it to the wall.  The steel frame I made had flat plates that Rawl bolted to the wall and floor, with the big vice right over one of the frame vertical members. 

 

This time I've taken  a very different approach, but looking carefully at what I do in each area of the workshop.  Bashing stuff only ever gets done on or near the big vice, so that is going on a smaller, free standing, bench, with a cupboard underneath.  The frame of this is going to be some 170 x 45 PAR timber that I have left over, so will take some serious abuse.  The cupboard is there both as storage and to stop all the swarf and rubbish from getting under the bench where it's harder to clean up.  That bench is smaller, because the area around the vice accumulates stuff - it's too easy to just put files, hacksaw, hammers etc down next to the vice.

 

The main working benches are not free standing and neither do they have legs going to the floor.  Both are a couple of metres long and 600mm wide and both are fixed to the 150mm thick wall timbers with gallows brackets made from studwork (89 x 38 PAR).  This has turned up to be plenty strong enough for anything except heavy bashing, and one of these benches will house a bench top lathe and small milling machine, and will be covered with aluminium sheet, the other is covered with matt white formica, and is a "clean" assembly bench.  I also have a trestle table with an additional 1" marine ply top added, that I can stick in the middle of the workshop when I need it, or hang it on the wall when not needed.

 

Over the years I've learned that the hardest thing for me is cleaning up the workshop.  Sweeping around bench legs etc, and the inevitable boxes of stuff that end up underneath them, is a PITA, plus any open boxes get filled with crap.  This time I'm aiming to keep as much of the floor clear and easily swept with a broom as possible, in the hope that I'll be tempted to keep the place cleaner and tidier.  There are also loads of shelves, on the opposite side to the benches in the main, so they don't get in the way.  The single shelf over the benches will have a strip of 12 V LEDs underneath it to provide better light directly on to the bench, with no flickering.

 

I've experimented with bench surfaces, and found that laminating two 2400 x 600 sheets of 18mm MDF works well, with a studwork frame around the edge and the gallows brackets fitted direct to the work surface, with their front edges abutting the inside edge of the front frame.  36mm of MDF, framed and supported like this, seems plenty strong enough, and has the advantage that, unlike the old teak bench tops I had, it has very little bounce - it seems inherently "dead".  I had a small bench in my old workshop that just had a plain MDF top and that stood up to a lot of punishment and I didn't even bother to seal it.  I reckon that for general use just sealing an MDF surface would be good enough.  I've only opted to both seal and bond on aluminium to the machine tool benchtop as it will get covered in oil and swarf, and this will make it easier to clean.

 

As a final idea, a friend of mine made a sort of modular workspace in his workshop, years ago.  He set female threaded resin anchors in a grid pattern in the floor, each with a rubber bung in.  He had things like a portable vice frame, his portable table saw etc arranged so they could be positioned over these holes and just bolted down wherever they were needed.  The advantage of this arrangement was that he could position things for handling and cutting long lengths of stuff more easily.

[SteamyTea]

I use trestles, some 2 by 4 timber lengths and a bit of OSB which I cover with an old toughened glass shower door when I want a flat smooth surface (not managed to shatter it yet).

This was only a temporary measure about 8 years ago, I have greater plans for my real shed.

 

As for legs and sweeping the floor.  I have the same problem at work.  What is needed is a plinth, or a look alike, sealed, plinth.

Then simple shelves with a back to them (stops things falling out of sight).

Draws may be useful too, sealed when closed, can't close them if you are messy.  Much better than open boxes that fill up with dust.

 

Also worth putt a fixed back on the rear of any bench, again, it stops things falling down between the wall and the dusty boxes and shit under the bench.

 

And why is a bench never quite big enough?

Edited November 3, 2017 by SteamyTea

[Temp]

Lot depends what you will be using the workbench for.

 

Any kind of hand sawing or chisel work needs a really solid bench that won't move. Last house I built one out of 2*4 bolted to the block garage walls. Don't make it full length of the wall, you need somewhere for timber to overhang.

 

If you expect to do a lot of work with sheet materials (eg 8'*4' sheets of mdf or ply) then free standing movable bench and or trestles  at better.  

 

 

[Temp]

35 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

And why is a bench never quite big enough?

 

Same reason workshops are always a bit too small.

[ToughButterCup]

1 hour ago, Temp said:

 

Same reason workshops are always a bit too small.

 

Look at @Construction Channel 's in his videos. He could hold a party in his, and have space enough left over for his drone to fly over the party goers.

[Construction Channel]

1 hour ago, recoveringacademic said:

 

Look at @Construction Channel 's in his videos. He could hold a party in his, and have space enough left over for his drone to fly over the party goers.

And somehow It’s still full to the brim. ?

[Onoff]

I have a double garage, shed and stable block that are each a mixture of each other. Slowly getting there. For instance I now have two tubs of assorted washers (garage/shed) that could become one! The disorganization is just an extension of my mind!

 

My shed bench is one of the oak teacher's desks that came out of my infants school where I went 45 years ago!

[Russell griffiths]

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=464

 

 

have a look here brilliant forum, but it will leave you envious. 

[willbish]

I found the Simpson Strongtie workbench kit great. So quick, simple and guaranteed strong joints.

 

Used another kit recently for a set of fitted adult friendly bunk beds in a ski lodge.

 

[Roger440]

59 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=464

 

 

have a look here brilliant forum, but it will leave you envious. 

 

Now thats the truth!!

[SteamyTea]

Who is the poor soul that has to sleep in the middle one, Twiggy?

 

[Guest Alphonsox]

Thanks everyone for the comprehensive set of replies - A lot of great ideas to digest. 

Like @ProDave and @JSHarris I have a workbench "liberated" from the day job - In my case a high spec electronics workbench with full ESD protection, network and power. This will be on one of the left wall. The right wall is covered in commercial grade racking from a failed local business. So I need to sit down and decide what I actually want or need along the back wall

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, Alphonsox said:

Thanks everyone for the comprehensive set of replies - A lot of great ideas to digest. 

Like @ProDave and @JSHarris I have a workbench "liberated" from the day job - In my case a high spec electronics workbench with full ESD protection, network and power. This will be on one of the left wall. The right wall is covered in commercial grade racking from a failed local business. So I need to sit down and decide what I actually want or need along the back wall

Just to be clear, there was nothing underhand about me finding a good home for a number of surplus workbenches.  The lab at the time was undergoing a period of change and modernisation and virtually all the old wooden benches were being replaced with smaller metal framed melamine topped replacements. The old ones were scrap.  It was a quirk of the bureaucracy that anything made of wood could be freely given to employees as "firewood" for free. If an employee wanted any scrap metal or scrap electronics that was a whole new level of difficulty.  Scrap metal was sold weekly and it was pot luck what was there each week. Scrap electronics had to go through the radio club, and i remember it taking a whole year for a scrap oscilloscope I had rescued from a scrap bin to be eventually released for me to buy it for £3 (I repaired it and still have it)