Building a workbench that should outlive my great grand kids

mabupa

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About 5-6 years ago I borrowed a friends welder and built a workbench for my garage and used a craftsman wood top. That bench has been great, but Kees getting smaller and smaller, as I pile more thing on it. I kept finding myself sitting on the floor to wrench on something or putting it on top of my garbage can for support, so I decided to build a bigger bench to add next to my current on. Just wanted to share the process. I made a drawing of the design (sorry, no pics of that) and decided to use 2x2” square tubing with 1/8” thickness and 2” angle iron for the “frame of the bench”.Here is a quick list of the materials:

4 pieces of 42” long square tubing (the legs)
1 piece of 84” long square tubing
2 pieces 23” long square tubing
2 pieces of 84” inch long angle iron
2 pieces of 23” long angle iron
 
I went and picked up the metal and exchanged my empty c25 tank for a full one and got to work.

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The frame was the easy part of my project....... now it was time to make the wood top. I wanted the bench to be about 32in in depth. I did some research and found a design I liked and ran to hardware store to gather the materials. Here is the list:

21 kiln-dried 2x4 that were 96” in length
7 36” threaded rods in 3/8” thickness
Washers and nuts
1 gallon of wood glue
1 bottle of danish oil
Rented a table saw

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As some of you might know, a 2x4 is is not really 2x4. Lol! It’s only about 3.5 inches on the wide side. The plan was to use the table saw to cut 1/4 inch of each side of the 2x4 to get rid of the round edges and reduce it down to 3”. Once I did that, I proceeded to drill 7 holes on each 2x4 for threaded rods to go through. Once I drilled all those holes I put glue on all the 2x4’s bigger faces, lined them, ran the threaded rods though and put washers and nuts to sandwich them together, until they were dried. I was left with what you see on pic below

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I left the newly assembled top alone until a few days later, since I had to work. On my next day off I took the frame and drilled around 16 holes on the angle iron all around the top section and then sat the new wood top on the frame and used wood screws from the bottom up through the holes I had just drilled on the angle iron. This was the result:

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Notice how I’m using my creeper to help me move the bench around. This thing is heavy!!!! Did I say is heavy?!!
next step was to sand the top to get a somewhat smooth work surface. I say somewhat, because my plan is to bolt a vice, my drill press, a grinder, etc to this bench, so I can free up my smaller bench to work on.
I wanted a quick way of sanding such big surface and Facebook market provided a porter cable belt sander with all pieces in a bag for $15 dollars. When I questioned the seller, the lady stated that the husband had taken It apart to replace power cord, switch, bearings and give it a good cleaning and couldn’t figure out how to put it together. Score!!!! I picked it up and sat down for about 45mins with it and put it together. hardware store, here I come again.......!!! I picked up a pack of 80 grit belts and another pack of 160 grit or so and went to work. Here is a before and after pic.

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Once I applied the oil, I just sat back and admired the fruits of my hard labor. Lol! This wasn’t an easy task, being in Florida. Gallons of sweat went into this project. I’m now organizing my garage. It’s still pretty messy, but I’m getting there. Also notice why I only ordered one 84” section of square tubing. I wanted the front of the bench to stay open so I can slide my bike parts containers in and out easy. @c10 thanks again for the busa poster. I love looking at in my garage!

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That's a dandy job, looks like it was always there...
Thanks! The idea was to to fill the rest of the space, but leave a get between benches to slide my gas cylinders in between to minimize chances of knocking them over. My next project is to build a welding cart. I could buy one, but building one one be more fun.
 
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