You can also pick up metal framing legs from HD for less than $50 a pair. Just add whatever you want for a top. I got two pair and made a bench 12' long with 2 x 6 's for a top.
From the literature....
Wood magazine, March 2018, Issue 252, has plans for a compact workbench -- 60" long, 27" deep, 34" high -- made from construction grade 2X8" fir. According the article, estimate for material -- not including bench dogs and vice -- was just shy of US$100.00
No fancy joinery: butt joints, glue, and screws. Looks rather stout and has storage compartments/niches under the top along with a 54" x 15" bottom shelf.
No fancy joinery: butt joints, glue, and screws. Looks rather stout and has storage compartments/niches under the top along with a 54" x 15" bottom shelf.
1 - 9 of 9 Posts
The cheapest and best work bench that I ever built was made from 2 X 4 stock with a top made from a commercial door that came new from the local construction salvage shop. Habitat For Humanity is similar to them. I think I paid $35 for the door. It was smooth, perfectly flat, and HEAVY with the hinge notches and door knob holes. I covered the top with a piece of 1/8" tempered MDF because it just didn't seem right to let that beautiful surface get beat up. I doubled the 2 X 4s to make the legs and glued and screwed the 2 X 4s together, making a complete frame like a table, but with a lower shelf, then put the door on top of it. That was one very solid work bench. I left it behind in my last house, because my shop was down sizing in the move, and because I couldn't figure out how to get it out of the basement alone The plan was to make another some day, but it's been 35 years and I still don't have that much shop space for another. I still miss that bench.
Charley
Charley
I did a similar thing,Charley, after using a solid core door on saw horses for 30 years so I could break it down in between projects and move it.The cheapest and best work bench that I ever built was made from 2 X 4 stock with a top made from a commercial door that came new from the local construction salvage shop. Habitat For Humanity is similar to them. I think I paid $35 for the door. It was smooth, perfectly flat, and HEAVY with the hinge notches and door knob holes. I covered the top with a piece of 1/8" tempered MDF because it just didn't seem right to let that beautiful surface get beat up. I doubled the 2 X 4s to make the legs and glued and screwed the 2 X 4s together, making a complete frame like a table, but with a lower shelf, then put the door on top of it. That was one very solid work bench. I left it behind in my last house, because my shop was down sizing in the move, and because I couldn't figure out how to get it out of the basement alone The plan was to make another some day, but it's been 35 years and I still don't have that much shop space for another. I still miss that bench.
Charley
The permanent one I made ,also from Habitat store I put a drawer unit on the bottom shelf.
A young fellow in our WW club just made one like Ray is talking about, and boy is that a slab of wood made out of 2X8, with (3) 2X6 laminated together for legs, with the middle one extended and cut on a 45 deg. edge to through dovetail up through the top. He said it doesn't move when he uses it.:laugh2:
Herb
I’m still actually in the process of building my first shop, in my tiny basement. I’m an electrician for a town here in Massachusetts, and we work in all the town buildings. December 2016, I’m in the kitchen at the high school, and hear the kitchen manager talking about how they have to get rid of their 8 foot, by 30 inch, wooden work tables because under the states new guide lines, wooden tables are porous and can’t be used in any of the towns kitchens. I got two of these tables (I only kept the butcher block table tops), they make awesome bench tops. The price was free, and they thanked me for getting rid of them, for them. They go about 100-120 pounds, needed my son to help me get them into the basement.
http://thepatriotwoodworker.com/notifications/I’m still actually in the process of building my first shop, in my tiny basement. I’m an electrician for a town here in Massachusetts, and we work in all the town buildings. December 2016, I’m in the kitchen at the high school, and hear the kitchen manager talking about how they have to get rid of their 8 foot, by 30 inch, wooden work tables because under the states new guide lines, wooden tables are porous and can’t be used in any of the towns kitchens. I got two of these tables (I only kept the butcher block table tops), they make awesome bench tops. The price was free, and they thanked me for getting rid of them, for them. They go about 100-120 pounds, needed my son to help me get them into the basement.
That is a great find, they will make super work tables.
Too many people dyeing from food prepared on those tables? ( they have been using them for hundreds of years before disinfectants).
Herb
I’m still actually in the process of building my first shop, in my tiny basement. I’m an electrician for a town here in Massachusetts, and we work in all the town buildings. December 2016, I’m in the kitchen at the high school, and hear the kitchen manager talking about how they have to get rid of their 8 foot, by 30 inch, wooden work tables because under the states new guide lines, wooden tables are porous and can’t be used in any of the towns kitchens. I got two of these tables (I only kept the butcher block table tops), they make awesome bench tops. The price was free, and they thanked me for getting rid of them, for them. They go about 100-120 pounds, needed my son to help me get them into the basement.
That is a great find, they will make super work tables.
Too many people dyeing from food prepared on those tables? ( they have been using them for hundreds of years before disinfectants).
Herb
Today's paranoia. Potential lawsuit. Free money.http://thepatriotwoodworker.com/notifications/
That is a great find, they will make super work tables.
Too many people dyeing from food prepared on those tables? ( they have been using them for hundreds of years before disinfectants).
Herb
Yeah, the kitchen manager was less than pleased to lose them, but the health inspector wouldn’t budge, guess the law is pretty cut and dried about it. Supposedly, as they explained it to me, bacteria can leach into the wood, and then be distributed in the food. This was probably my first act of thinking like a woodworker, I heard the conversation, and immediately offered to take them. They laid on my basement floor for a year and a half before I was ready to use them. They weigh too much for me to take a chance leaning them up. (My wife and I are klutzes). I actually drove around to the other 9 schools the town has, and checked their kitchens, but alas the high school was the only one that wooden tops.
1 - 9 of 9 Posts
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