Workbench

Before I started the whole Mojolever thing in fall ’04, I didn’t have a workbench. Well, not a real one, at least. I had the small table that has since become my welding station, but I knew if I was going to do production work, I was going to need a good heavy-duty workbench with a lot of room. The kind of thing I had in mind would cost me a fortune to buy ready-made, so instead I made a trip to Home Depot and brought home a few sheets of 3/4” plywood and a bunch of 2x4’s, and came up with this:

2x4’s form the perimeter support for the tabletop and the underhung shelf, as well as ribs on 16-inch centers across the entire width. The permanent joints are all assembled with construction adhesive and 3.5” subflooring screws; the tabletop, shelf, and leg subassemblies are bolted together with 3/8” bolts, and can be separated to allow each piece to fit through any residential doorway without a struggle. The whole thing is 8 feet wide and three feet front to back; I used 1 4’x8’ sheet of plywood each to make the tabletop and shelf; the extra 1-foot-wide piece of plywood forms a backstop for the tabletop and the shelf. The tabletop is covered with white Formica, forming a nice, tough, clean work surface. The whole structure is plenty strong: when I bring home the parts for a new batch of Mojolevers, there’s absolutely no problem with laying 720 pounds of steel bars on the table top.

In my previous house, where the Mojolever work began, the floor of the workshop was carpeted. To protect the carpet, I laid down four slabs of 3/4'” tongue-and-groove subfloor plywood, locked together with brackets to form a single continuous floor. For stability, I made some angle brackets and bolted the workbench to that plywood floor surface:

Even now, on the concrete basement floor of our new house, this arrangement is still useful as it keeps the workbench from wandering around when I’m really reefing on something in the vise.

It took several evenings to finish, but the total material cost was only about $250. Looking at MSC’s offerings, I can’t even find an 8-foot-wide heavy-duty workbench; the closest thing is only 6 feet wide, and it’s $726 (not including shipping). I think I did alright.

Questions? Comments? Email me!