The Workbench

[John Bateson]

I am after ideas about building a new workbench.
The lady downstairs is moving me into a larger room, providing I equip it with a sofa bed and decorate it before hand. The present workshop-cum-office will become a bed-room for visiting grand-children, while the sofa bed in the larger room will be for visiting adults.
This also means the neighbour is less likely to hear either Glen Miller, Beethoven or the lathe when I am working.

It occurs to me that an ideal surface for a workbench might just be a cheap 3 metre kitchen work top, the under fittings being made of 3"x2" scantling as is the present workbench.
Any thoughts, ideas, warnings, advice on the sofa bed, etc etc, offers to help move things around ...

John

[Terry Bendall]

I use a timber built workshop in the garden so some things may be a bit different from a space indoors but the following may be useful.

The top of my bench is 18mm thick MDF. I bought a full sheet 2440mm x 1220mm and cut it in two lengthways, one piece being 660mm wide and the other about 570mm These are arranged in one corner to give an L shape with the wider part being the main work bench and the narrower piece for the machines and overflow work space. Not everyone has or needs machines but I still find an L shape top useful. A piece of 45mm x 18mm timber was screwed to the wall to support the back edge of the top, and 70mm x 18mm was used as the front support rail with 45mm square section legs -three along the 2440 mm length. The hight was set at 780m from the floor to the top surface which works for me. I set the front rail back from the edge of the top by 50mm so that I can use a clamp-on vice which I find is better than a fixed one since it can be moved out of the way if a large flat space is required. Two coats of vanish to give a good finish to the top and a second hand office swivel chair to sit on.

No reason why a kitchen counter top should not work just as well although the rounded front edge may be a problem sometimes. i think 3 x 2 (75mm x 50mm timber could be a bit too heavy for the frame. Ideally any bench should be unser a window if you can. Putting something on the wall above the top of the bench (such as a platic laminate or painted timber could keep the wall clean.

Terry Bendall

[grovenor-2685]

I found a piece of kitchen worktop on offer at B&Q one day as return with some little blemish and snapped it up, its a bit over 2m which fits my box room nicely. I put 6 inch upstands on the back and both ends made of conti shelving and it just sits on a couple of those metal garage shelving units. It has proved heavy enough to need no other fixing and the curved front edge has not been an issue.
Second hand office swivel chair as already mentioned.
Regards
Keith

[Tim V]

Why not stick the kitchen worktop ( I got mine cheap as well) on top of some discarded kitchen units. My garage workshop has the contents of two kitchens. They make useful free storage units. You may know of someone who is replacing their kitchen, but don't replace your own just to get the free units - that is an expensive way of doing things!

[John Bateson]

Funny you should mention that, Tim - work on the kitchen starts 8 August and two upper cupboards, a set of drawers and one base cupboard are already earmarked.
The rest are too tatty for re-use.
I will still need some more support for the work top though.
John

[Tim V]

But the ends of the tatty units might be usable as supports?

[grovenor-2685]

Not very tidy but here it is.

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The tool drawers fit between the bench top and one's knees, I found kitchen drawer inners on offer at Wickes, shopsoiled £2 for 3, one was perfect and went into the kitchen for its intended purpose holding cutlery, the other 2 are here and have proved very useful.

bench-3.JPG

Regards
Keith

[Tim V]

Here's mine.
The solder station. The soldering iron, flux etc is kept well away from any precision tools. The soldering iron is currently in the garage where I'm working on one of the baseboards.

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The Unimat is on a separate high level bench.

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The main bench is a converted desk, extremely untidy! You can never have too many electrical sockets, I've just counted 25 around these three benches!

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[John Bateson]

We seem to be in "I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours" mode.

These might make a great montage for one of the shows ...


And no, I'm too shy!


I suspect the 'tatty' end pieces would support a workbench, but not an 85lb lathe.

John

[DougN]

John I think that you might find that the work top if about 32mm thick will happily support a weight of 85lb.. My kitchen can support me and I can say that I am well in excess of double that weight Try your local kitchen top post former they sometimes have offcuts and mistakes that might make for a fine work top. Note that the curves to the front edge do vary from square edge (with an ABS strip) through 2 tight 90degree bends to half thickness radius!

Personally if I had the room I would be using a Work top as the Laminates tend to be very tough for the abuse that I put out at times.

[John Bateson]

A few months ago The Lady Downstairs & Small Daughter (she of the bookkeeping tendency) decided my office/workshop was far too small and cramped and decided to move me into a larger room.
After a lot of work, a lot of redecoration, a new worktop and a major reorganisation for the business side of things the results are shown in the attached pictures.
The lathe and tools area is now directly under daylight, the computer screens are away from sunlight and in spite of everything we have gained a bed (double sofa bed style) for the tri-ennial visits of the antipodean mob.

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[iak]

Now that room rocks John
I'll have to let the Missus see this...............

[Wizard of the Moor]

How are you getting on with the Conquest, John?

Nice workshop, btw.

[John Bateson]

The Conquest is a nice machine in my humble opinion, but as I did not learn how to use a lathe properly either at school or later in life, it took a while to learn how to do things to a standard so that I could sell parts for kits, and even then they are quite simple.
Its bigger and more expensive than a simple startup machine, but I wanted to make sure that it had capability to spare so the extra £120 was worth it.
At nearly 80 lbs it was non-trivial moving it from one room to the next!

I think what finally cracked it for me was discovering Glanze indexable tools ...

John

[Tim V]

80lbs, that's nothing, try a Myford Ml7, 220lbs!

Seriously, that looks a very comfortable workshop, you could get a lot done in there.

[John Bateson]

The corner of the room which was not shown will hold a 3 seater sofa bed (54" wide), which can be used when we have visitors, or when the Lady Downstairs objects to my snoring.
During normal times it will be a useful place from which to do some serious armchair modelling.
John

[Paul Townsend]

The corner of the room which was not shown will hold a 3 seater sofa bed (54" wide), which can be used when we have visitors, or when the Lady Downstairs objects to my snoring.
During normal times it will be a useful place from which to do some serious armchair modelling.
John

Only wimps need sleep

When my Lady Upstairs kicks me out for snores ( allegedly ) I descend to my basement and find peace with modelling.
Clearly you need to rearrange how to use your stories