Workbench upgrades

Record 52e Woodworkers Vice

Sourced a second hand vice from ebay and took the mechanism apart ready for installing.

 Profile cut using a router and chisel.

Rear vice jaw fitted flush to the workbench crossmember.

Fitted the front jaw mechanism and added a large jaw face made from solid oak floorboards glued together.

Record No. 5 Engineers Vice

Another ebay addition to the bench is the Record No. 5 Engineers Vice bolted to the workbench.

Tool holder

I added a simple toolholder which is basically a strip of wood going the length of the workbench with lots of varying size holes to store screw drivers and router bits etc.  This also helps stop things falling off the back of the worktop.

Height & Castors

When I decided to re-arrange the garage I found the workbench almost impossible to move.  For a long time I also found the workbench a tad high as it was initially designed from the perspective of a woodworker (i.e. good height to plane boards).  The it dawned on me, hey, I don't actually do any planing and what I really want is somewhere to do some occasional routing and assemble larger stuff like my DIY speaker projects.

I thus proceeded to chop the bottom parts of the workbench legs and drilled some holes for castors while I was at it.  Now if I want to move the workbench I can lift each end with a car jack and slot in these 200Kg rated 80mm Nylon castors, then remove them once I've got it into place.

Shelving & Doors

To keep things a bit tidier I added some more shelves and doors to keep the sawdust out.

Heavy Duty Workbench

I wanted a cheap but rugged workbench for the garage.  It would be used for  woodworking and engineering projects and I wanted to put the milling machine on one side of it.  Here's a design I thought would take some abuse and hopefully last a long time.

Started by cutting up timber for the 8 legs and glueing together.

Workbench legs glued and screwed.

Four completed workbench A frames.

6x2 cross members attached and then finished all edges with a router and chamfer bit.

The worktop was made using 3 layers of 18mm MDF glued together. The bottom shelf slides through and sits on the bottom members.  I routed an inset on the worktop to put small items where they won't fall off the table.  Finally the whole workbench is finished with 4 coats of Yacht varnish.