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Home Repair (alt.home.repair) For all homeowners and DIYers with many experienced tradesmen. Solve your toughest home fix-it problems. |
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#1
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Garage Workbench
I've been eyeing up Sears work benches. They look to be laminates
fastened to metal frame supports. I asked in Lowes if they sold them and the guy, said no 'he built his own'. I guess for what they want for the sears I could buy a good table saw and the materials to build my own with money to spare. The dimensions of the sears workbench are just right. It (the one I like) has a nice 8 ft run and a continuous worktop. But I haven't been ablet to find a piece of wood with the desired thickness and in one contiuous piece for the worktop. Lowes has pieces (precut) that come close but not as wide. Is there another way to get what I want. And what materials would be ideal for a garage workbench. There must be plans floating around out there somewhere.. Thanks Chas |
#3
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Garage Workbench
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#4
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Garage Workbench
wrote in message ... I've been eyeing up Sears work benches. They look to be laminates fastened to metal frame supports. I asked in Lowes if they sold them and the guy, said no 'he built his own'. I guess for what they want for the sears I could buy a good table saw and the materials to build my own with money to spare. The dimensions of the sears workbench are just right. It (the one I like) has a nice 8 ft run and a continuous worktop. But I haven't been ablet to find a piece of wood with the desired thickness and in one contiuous piece for the worktop. Lowes has pieces (precut) that come close but not as wide. Is there another way to get what I want. And what materials would be ideal for a garage workbench. Only sissies "buy" workbenches. Real handymen or craftsman make their own. Mine is two sheets of 3/4" plywood laminated together. A little wood glue and th en screwed together from the bottom. Two thicknesses of MDF will be solid, but heavier. For the legs, use 2 x 4's. Make an apron of 1 x 4's or 1 x 6's and set the top on that assembly. Put a full sized shelf on the bottom and it will be very rigid. -- Ed http://pages.cthome.net/edhome/ |
#5
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Garage Workbench
"PaPaPeng" wrote in message ... On Sat, 2 Jun 2007 20:32:01 -0400, wrote: I've been eyeing up Sears work benches. They look to be laminates fastened to metal frame supports. I asked in Lowes if they sold them and the guy, said no 'he built his own'. I guess for what they want for the sears I could buy a good table saw and the materials to build my own with money to spare. The dimensions of the sears workbench are just right. It (the one I like) has a nice 8 ft run and a continuous worktop. But I haven't been ablet to find a piece of wood with the desired thickness and in one contiuous piece for the worktop. Lowes has pieces (precut) that come close but not as wide. Is there another way to get what I want. And what materials would be ideal for a garage workbench. There must be plans floating around out there somewhere.. Thanks Chas I bought a 8 ft x 3 ft solid wood door from a building supplies recycling store. Makes an excellent work table. Has a varnished maple finish and weighs as solid heavy wood although I think its veneer maple. Do you want pretty, or do you want something you will be willing to scuff up? A 2x4 frame with a couple of cross-pieces for rigidity, and a piece of 3/4 plywood attached to top with countersunk screws, works well. And when top gets too beat up (like a real workbench should), you can easily flip it over or replace it. If you want a pretty edge, band the exposed sides with another piece of 2x4 or whatever. As to plans- just Google 'workbench plans'- there are bound to be some out there. Lotsa ways to do it, most will work okay. Really depends on your space and other available storage- my preference is to keep the space below bench clear, for easy cleanup, other than any needed cross-pieces to tie the end frames together. If you can attach to wall, sometimes those aren't even needed. My father built a 22'x2' bench along one side of a one-bay garage, under a bank of south-facing windows, held up by triangle-shaped wood brackets screwed off to every other stud. I can stand on it, and it doesn't wobble at all. I'm actually jealous- a much nicer setup than I can do here. Those pretty butcher-block or whatever benches they sell at Sears, Sams, and similar places look nice- TOO nice. I'd spend all my time trying to avoid messing them up with whatever I was working on. A perfect-looking workbench, to me, is like those yuppie faux-gourmet kitchens in the magazines- meant for others to see. I've seen real restaurant kitchens- they look more like a real workshop. Not everything is new and shiny, everything doesn't match, and storage is placed where it works, not where it looks pretty. aem sends... |
#6
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Garage Workbench
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#7
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Garage Workbench
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#8
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Garage Workbench
The last one I made had to fit a somewhat narrow space next to the
garage door. So it was custom built to my own sketch using used 2 by 6 lumber from a discarded deck. Overall cost virtually nil. Good and solid using screws to take engine parts. A four by four leg from an old gate-post at the end not supported by walls is under the corner mounted vise making it much safer to beat on something held in the vise. Shelves above are high enough to allow something 24 inches high to be worked on on the bench. Benches are very much what you need them for. No one size/type fits all! Completely different application downstairs; electronics bench is two used 6' 8" (13 foot total) doors, end to end, supported on a frame made from discarded steel shelving angle. No pounding on that one but fair amount of space with shelves not too far above for test gear. Respectfully suggest that if anyone is capable of making things 'on' a work bench it would be a good exercise to build the bench itself as starting point. A third bench was built quickly some 37+ years ago, while building this house, using scrapped wood from some shipping pallets. It now needs some repair and upgrading. A fourth bench was found dumped; about four feet long, quite low but a convenient height for some tasks, it had been ingeniously made of pieces of cut off doors. Quite sturdy it mounts our largest/heaviest vise. So; conclusion! Decide what the bench will be used for and then build it to that requirement. A gardener's potting bench need will be a completely different thing to that of an electronic enthusiast's! |
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