I made this Swedish style joiners bench from a Shuffle Board table and local hardwoods; Walnut and Elm with bits of manzanita. The legs are VG fir salvaged from a building that was coming down. All the joinery was hand cut.

Hi!

A bit of context before I get to the actual problem.

I have in the works a swing down table that runs along the garage wall. That table will be around 2 meters wide and 1 meter deep. That swings down and legs come out. For this I have seen a bunch of tutorials and guides.
My end goal is to have like an L shape to the workplace.
And designing the long part has proven a bit outside my knowledge.

The long part will be stored flat against the wall with one of the short sides against the floor and the other pointing towards the ceiling.
Ideally the table will still be connected to the mechanism when in its flat/work position. So that the wall acts as an holding point. This could be achieved with pins just locking it in place or something similar.

I have tried searching for designs and tutorials like this but can't really find anything. Don't know if I'm searching for the wrong thing so if anyone has seen something similar before please point me in that direction.
Or if you have some thoughts about how I can solve it I would greatly appreciate the help.

My initial plan was to have the short end run on a track with wheels and swing down legs. There will also be legs in the middle of the table. I just hadn't added them in the picture. But I don't really know what to do to get an easy mechanism to it, so that it isn't super heavy to put back against the wall or me being squished against the floor when trying to rotate the bench out.

I added some pictures on what I'm thinking to hopefully give you guys some context.

TLDR:
Need help designing/finding some mechanism that will let me store a long table flat against the wall. Ideally the table will always be attached to this system even when in the "work" position.

Hello everyone!

I’ve really enjoyed lurking on this sub the past few months. Like most of you I’m beginning my woodworking journey by building my first work bench.

My first project was building big cedar beds (4’x8’) for our garden. I purchased a Ryobi 10inch sliding/compound miter saw with the universal collapsible stand.

I decided I needed a nice flat workbench as I did not enjoy working off the garage floor when building the beds. So I figured I would build one of those big mobile workbench’s and landed on a 4’x6’ design.

I’m now questioning the functionality of such a large bench. I originally planned to put it on casters and wheel it out to the middle of the garage when I worked. Now I think having something with less depth would be more useful if I just wanted to walk up and work on something. If I ever need to use the miter saw and can just bust out the stand.

I know a lot of workbench designs depend on the work you intend to do. I’m not entirely sure what the scope of my projects will be. General household stuff. Building a bed frame for my son. Building an outdoor shed. It’s really intended to be a hobby for me to get away from screens and AI and build with my hands.

I can still pivot to a slimmer bench if I want. But I’m having anxiety about making the wrong decision.

I’ve included a picture of the basic frame I’ve built. Nothing is fixed yet. Just wanted to get a feel for the size.

Its a little rough but it will do for now. Plan on adding a smooth top when i have some spare time

Hey team,

“You don’t know what you don’t know” situation here.

I have a bench that has a 20mm ply top about 1800mm long x 600mm deep that I’m planning to router a set of T-tracks across the long way. While looking for the T-tracks I found dog nuts(?!?) that I can drill and add those. Good finding as I didn’t know about them but, beyond T-tracks and dog nuts,

what are other sort of accessories I could look into it?

TIA

Just wanted to show off my mobile work bench…………………..

Wife needed new workbench. My first motos and tenons build. Bonus cat house underneath

Rate my workbench (or whatever this monstrocity of a workbench is) from 1 to 10.

I built this workbench recently. Still need to add some dog holes and build a side vise. The 2x4 joints are doweled, glued and pocket screwed. The plywood (glued and screwed) keeps this thing from racking in any way. It can still twist a bit which keeps all four legs on the ground. The top is 2x6s ripped in half and glued up. I used water based poly for the base and drawers and BLO for the top (pictures are from before it was finished).

I see too many benches on here with no triangles or flat sheets to stop racking. This one is solid.

I think this is ok to do, but since I've never done it before, I thought I'd ask here.

I have a board that I've milled to S4S, but it's oversized. Is there any reason to not use the jointer to remove the rest of the material? Could it compromise how square the board is?

The edge I want to work on is too tall to fit in my planer. If I use the table saw I'd have to work it from both sides (again, too tall) and then clear out the remainder with a bandsaw and a block plane. That's no problem, except that it's hard maple and I don't want to worry about sanding out the burn marks from the saw blade.

The jointer is set up properly and the fence is 90 degrees.

Edit - Update. I scribed a line and gave it a shot with small bites. It worked like a champ. It was coplanar within a few thousandths over a span of 32 inches. I’ve been jointing boards and building furniture for years but never had a reason to try this. I wouldn’t use this technique regularly, but it’s nice to know that it’s a possibility. Caveat is that the jointer is commercial quality - maybe that matters.

Hi Folks,

I'm looking to build a Nicholson style or the Anarchists workbench.

What wood can you recommend to use from Europe?

Locally we have a lot of larch, some chestnut, ash and others.

Any hints, what did you use?

Appreciated

Ended up designing this workbench on a free online site. Not gonna share the link here because I'm not sure if it's allowed. You can dm me if you'd like to see the design there.

I went to my local Restore and snagged a hollow core prefab door for $15. Still in the plastic! They actually said it was priced wrong and should have been $35 so I got lucky.

Very nice home depot worker cut a large 3/4" MDF panel to size for me and that's what's sitting on the top.

Frame is fairly simple. The legs are 3' 2x4s screwed together. Long frame beams are 6' each, and the middle supports are 21". Edge supports are 24", all 2x4s. I used 2.5" deck screws for pretty much all of the connections. Got a couple small cracks, but I'm just gonna smother them in wood glue and call it a day. Ended up removing the middle supports and actually screwing them in on the front and back rather than under the middle.

I was trying to figure out the best way to screw together the MDF/door/frame and then realized I could just use carriage bolts and nuts to effectively clamp everything together rather than screwing it together. Now it's seriously sturdy and if I ever need to sub in a new MDF panel, it'll be super easy to just unscrew the bolts and swap it out.

Now I'm looking for anyone's ideas and suggestions on cool upgrades.

I'm thinking about maybe installing a 3 to 6-inch backplate on the rear to stop anything from falling behind it.

Included a couple pictures after adding shelves and a light above it. Excuse the fact that the workbench is already CLUTTERED lol.

Recently closed on a new house with a 33’x40’ garage. Needed to build a new work bench and have taken some inspiration from various plans and tid bits of advice here and there
2’x8’ footprint, 38” to the top with a 5/8” piece of plywood top and shelf. Plan to put a piece of hardboard on top as well.

Any recommendations for added bracing for structural integrity or does the hive mind think this is structurally sound?
Thanks much

I am fixing my grandpa old workbench and the work top has a very bug crack. I would like to keep it because I really like to work on it, it reminds me of him and his teachings.

The worktop is made from one 3 cm (about 1 1/4 inch) thick pine board.

I was thinking to glue it and than add 4 bowties, as you can see in the pictures. The bowties are made from holm oak.

Should the bowties inlay depth go all the way through or should i leave some material on the bottom?

Do you have any suggestions or a better way to adress this?

Thanks a lot!

Hello all,

I’m looking for some design review on mounting my workbench top to its base.

I’ve been working on building my workbench. The top is 3”-1/4 x 33”x79” Roubo-style lamination of SYP, while the base is a hydraulic scissor-lift table. The lift table has a 1/2” thick, 30”x30” steel plate welded on, with thinner sheet metal welded to an angle frame about 50” long.

In fastening the top to the base, I want to maintain air flow across the bottom, as well as allow for expansion and contraction.

My understanding is that the best practice for screwing a top like this down is that I should screw tightly into the center of the expansion direction, fit into a slip-fit hole, then snugly screw along the direction of expansion with screws fitted into slots.

Since I don’t have a headache-free way of slotting the 1/2” steel plate, and I want to keep some airflow, I’ve decided to screw some mounting pads into the top, then attaching those to the steel plate with threaded inserts so everything is removable.

It seems that this solution will feed two birds with one scone, but I’d love some feedback if I’m missing something. Concepts in photos.

Based on the Benchcrafted/Fine-Tools plans I created this split-top Roubo with slanted legs on one side to make it more stable. Due to my lack of jointer I made the top by gluing together two 50 mm thick laminated birch boards and the legs from 40 mm thick boards. Benchcrafted vices work nicely!

The top sheet(s) for this bench is 2400mm by 1156mm to acommodate the even grid of 96mm dogholes. I’ve run into an issue though. I don’t have a reliable way of measuring this accurately. I have multiple rulers and tapes but they all show differences and none of them line up at 2400mm. Normally I wouldn’t care because there wouldn’t be a grid of dogholes on top and the final dimensions could be whatever, but it seems the whole point of the dimensions are to specifically be multiples of 96 to make the grid fit nicely. So if I’m off on the top size… ?

Am I overthinking?

Needed a new workbench for the new garage. Hope you like.

I didn’t have a ton of space and wanted to have as much flexibility as possible. Miter saw can be stored underneath for long rips on the table saw, and the entire bench is on lockable wheels for easy maneuvering.

About 3m x 1.8m. That’s approx 10 foot by 6 foot for the yanks.

Still a bit to do. Need to route slots for a cross cut sled and will drill dog holes in the far end, but pretty much done.

So happy to have an actual flat surface for assembly. I know the size is a bit of overkill, but mostly the interior will be used for materials storage. A can fit a full 1200 x 1800 sheet in there.

Anyway, thought I’d post as it’s a little different to a lot of the benches I see on here.

By the way, I got a good deal on some 2.7m LVLs so that makes up most of the bench. The top is made of two layers of f17 Formply. They’re offset to add rigidity and shimmed to the nth degree, but it’s at the point now where across the span, I can barely get a playing card under my 3 metre straight edge. Pretty happy with that.

Let me hear your thoughts.

Edit:

Wow! Thank you so much for all the kind comments! I’m genuinely blown away by it. Most of my mates aren’t particularly handy, so most of the people I’ve shown it to have just kinda shrugged and said ‘ok’. So, I really appreciate what you all have said. Thank you!

Hi all,

I have a decent size garage/shop but I use it for a variety of different things meaning I can’t dedicate floor space to leave things setup for any one type of project (and it would be nice to park inside again). I’m working on reorganizing and rearranging right now, I have some woodworking projects I would like to do when I’m done. My table saw and miter saw have been getting put away on a shelf and are a chore to take out and put away. So, those large tools stay put away more than I would like and I just don’t get to my projects. I’ve worked out a spot where I can put a 4 by 8(ish) foot table/workbench in a corner that is mostly out of the way.

I’ve looked around here and on YouTube for ideas and have a rough idea for what I want:
An out-feed/assembly type table with a shelf for the table saw on one of the short sides, a place for the miter saw on one of the long sides, and storage for other woodworking tools/hardware/etc in open storage or built in shelves underneath the work top. I’m planning to put it on leveling casters to roll it into the center of the room.
I have seen builds with a flip down miter saw station which looks appealing but I’m worried creating a mechanism for that (which is solid enough for me to be happy with) may be beyond my skill level. I already feel pretty confident about wiring the table so it can be easily powered with an extension cord, adding some flexible tube for a bucket dust collector, and a few other “quality of life” type things. My current plan is to build it from dimensional lumber and plywood from the usual suspects.

My main questions for you:

• What do you recommend (or recommend avoiding) for the miter saw? Flip down looks cool but seems complicated. I’m not opposed to storing the saw under the table and lifting it into place when I need it. Either way, I would like to have a flat surface for the top when the saw is not out.
• What do you like for the top? I want something that can take some abuse and probably have an easily replaceable top surface. I might add T track but probably not right away and I know that will make replacing a top layer more complicated.
• Are there any leveling casters (or similar solutions) you really like or ones to avoid?
• And finally: any tips, tricks, or gotchas for this kind of build that I should keep in mind?

Thanks in advance! I’m hoping I’ll have results to post here in a couple months.

Ignore the mess. Finishing up my first bench. Still a lot of work to do, but starting to think about the end. What finish do you guys use for your work surfaces?

I’m in the middle of a Roubo build and I only have enough lumber for either a cherry top with hickory legs or hickory top with cherry legs. I also have a few chunks of walnut for accents. What would you choose?