I designed and built a workbench!

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

MaterialQuantityDescription
72" x 25.5" x 1" countertop1a piece of countertop for the work surface. I'm far too lazy to laminate anything, and this looks nicer than plywood.
8' 2x4s8 ct.I eyeballed them in the store to pick ones that were reasonably straight and didn't have too many unsightly surface features.
8' 1x2s3 ct.For edge banding
2" wood screwsa few dozenfor mitre joints and corner blocks
2.5" deck screwsa few dozenfor joining 2x4s face-to-face (e.g. legs)
3" deck screwsa few dozenfor joining bigger pieces, diagonals, etc.

Tools

ToolPurpose
JigsawCutting perpendicular notches on leg halves -- this produced much more accurate and smooth cuts than my circular saw
Mallet and chiselFixing mistakes from previous cuts ;)
Mitre saw (at VHS)Cutting mitres in 2x4s
Power screwdriver, 2-3 sizes of Robertson bitsReticulating splines
Power drill, ~3/32" bitPredrilling holes... It's convenient for this to be separate from the screwdriver, otherwise you have to switch bits constantly
Countersink bitMaking nicer holes in visible locations
Pocket hole jigJoining the countertop to the top box -- If you're using 1" thick countertop material, set the depth stop to 7/8"!
ClampsIt has been alleged that one can never have too many

Photos

This is just a Google Photos album for now, I'll break it out into separate photos with more words later!

Summary

This is actually the first large thing I've designed and built out of atoms instead of bits. It turned out pretty well for a first project!
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