There Comes a Time In Everyone’s Life when they think… I should build a workbench. Apparently, for me, that time was this past week.
I was at Lowe’s getting various garden engineering and home improvement junk a couple weeks ago, and I saw this on sale for $99. So, I bought it, and started a design based on it.
CAD
My first version of the design had the legs protruding up through the countertop for some reason… That was no good. This is the design I ended up with:
3D design:
Drawings:
Materials
| Material | Quantity | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 72" x 25.5" x 1" countertop | 1 | a piece of countertop for the work surface. I'm far too lazy to laminate anything, and this looks nicer than plywood. |
| 8' 2x4s | 8 ct. | I eyeballed them in the store to pick ones that were reasonably straight and didn't have too many unsightly surface features. |
| 8' 1x2s | 3 ct. | For edge banding |
| 2" wood screws | a few dozen | for mitre joints and corner blocks |
| 2.5" deck screws | a few dozen | for joining 2x4s face-to-face (e.g. legs) |
| 3" deck screws | a few dozen | for joining bigger pieces, diagonals, etc. |
Tools
| Tool | Purpose | |
|---|---|---|
| Jigsaw | Cutting perpendicular notches on leg halves -- this produced much more accurate and smooth cuts than my circular saw | |
| Mallet and chisel | Fixing mistakes from previous cuts ;) | |
| Mitre saw (at VHS) | Cutting mitres in 2x4s | |
| Power screwdriver, 2-3 sizes of Robertson bits | Reticulating splines | |
| Power drill, ~3/32" bit | Predrilling holes... It's convenient for this to be separate from the screwdriver, otherwise you have to switch bits constantly | |
| Countersink bit | Making nicer holes in visible locations | |
| Pocket hole jig | Joining the countertop to the top box -- If you're using 1" thick countertop material, set the depth stop to 7/8"! | |
| Clamps | It has been alleged that one can never have too many |
