John
I was looking at your New Fangled Workbench and I was planning on extending the side without the front clamps by attaching another table with 4×4 legs. I was thinking about making the top for that out of plywood, mdf, or the two of those glued together. I was wondering what the pros and cons of doing something like that would be. I plan on using the side with all the clamps for clamping and holding the work and the extended side for staining/assembly/etc.
By the way…do you happen to have an extra piece resting on the planing beam? In the pictures it looks like you have an extra piece on the bottom with an additional planing wedge. If so, how do you make it/attach it?
Thanks,
RD
Replies
An assembly table is a good idea, almost a necessity, but attaching one to the back of a workbench may not be the best approach.
Tables for glue ups, assembly, and finishing are useful, but the tables' position, size, and height can vary with the job, so I prefer to use various combinations of saw horses and framed plywood tops to set up the shop as needed. For assembly, a low table that will get the piece you are building a foot or so off the floor is often handy, while gluing up panels often requires a large table that's taller, but still not quite as high as a bench top.
Also, I prefer to have the assembly and glue up tables close to the front of my bench so I can trim or plane a piece of wood and then just turn around to fit it to the piece I'm assembling. Having the assembly table attached to the back of the bench would mean walking around the bench far too many times.
You have good eyes, the planing beam does have an added on piece that was designed too late to be included in the drawings and text of the article. I discovered that the beam need a strip along its back edge and a wedge block that mirrored the front face and wedge block on the bench top. Without these additions, a board standing on edge would slip off the beam too easily while it was being worked on.
I attached the 1 1/2" square back strip and the wedge to a piece of 1/4" plywood that was about as wide as the beam but longer on the wedge end to create a mounting point for the wedge. The strip is notched to go around the pipes on either end but is removable to use the beam close to the bench top.
We are planning to shoot a video showing the details of the bench's design next week which will include good views of how the beam is now set up. The video will be on this site in a few weeks.
John White
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled