What has made you Happy today??

[Bloodyaussie]

Margherita just resigned..... hooray!!!

[Winnie]

Margherita just resigned..... hooray!!!

Hooray, congrats! Were they surprised?

[Cuppa]

Feeling a bit pleased with myself. It’s been a while since I did any woodwork & have spent much of the past week knocking up a new workbench for the new shed, having decided that step one of fitting out the shed needs to be the establishment of the workshop section. Walking between old & new sheds multiple times to do just about anything because tools/machinery are spread between the two was wearing very thin. So first a new workbench, then some power & lights for the workshop are the current agenda.

This was my ‘detailed’ plan for the bench on a piece of scrap paper. Mostly in my head following the usual ‘Cuppa’s making it up as you go along’ model.



And this was the outcome





6 metres long. Frame & legs all 90 x 45 ‘merchant grade’ pine studs - except for leg where vice will fit - a section of 100 x 100 verandah post I kept when replacing one which was rotted out at both ends. Bench tops are yellow tongue flooring with additional crossbracing underneath. Wall backboard & shelf is 12mm ply attached to 90 x 45 timber.

And this is my new favourite tool. (The whole thing is only screwed together (used around 700 screws!) to allow for dismantling should I ever want to move it elsewhere. Solid as!)

[Clunk]

finished cleaning off the snatch strap in the washing machine....... tis very clean now

[threedogs]

@ cuppa you having lock up doors for your electrical tools

[Cuppa]

Possibly TD. Will decide once higher budgetary priorities are taken care of.
Having been accustomed to getting timber for next to nothing back on the farm I’m still in a state of shock over the cost of timber. Believe it or not there is over $600 of materials in that bench!

[lhurley]

@cuppa

how do you find the flooring board as a bench top? i need to make a new work bench and im undecided what i want to make the top out of

[Cuppa]

@cuppa

how do you find the flooring board as a bench top? i need to make a new work bench and im undecided what i want to make the top out of

Too early to tell as I only finished building it today & haven’t used it for anything more than a ’shelf’ yet.
It’s a lot heavier than ply & quite rigid on it’s own, but I added additional cross members underneath it which I screwed the top to, to make it as rigid & ‘bounce free’ as I could. It’s also perfectly flat & warp free. I think it will work well. The top surface has some sort of wax impregnation to give it a degree of waterproofing (designed to sit out in the elements for up to 3 months whilst a house is being built. It feels like quite a hard surface which I think will be quite durable, certainly a lot more so than ordinary chipboard. I plan to use it as is & think it will cope well but if I find after a while that the surface does deteriorate it would be easy enough to cover it.

Cost wise - if money were no object I’d probably choose 150mm thick seasoned hardwood strips laminated together & covered with metal or laminex sheet but I didn’t want to take out a mortgage! The yellow tongue was $42 for sheets 3600 x 900 x 19mm - 2 per bench with enough left over to make a couple of shelves elsewhere & a couple of doors for the ‘cupboard’ I’ve built to house the water pump. You can get the same flooring in thicker section too - Red tongue =22mm & Blue Tongue =25mm but it would be *very* heavy to work with. We (wife & I) ripped the length of our 19mm sheets on my old Triton saw bench & I’m really not sure we’d have managed it any heavier.

[morton2478]

Catch can, dawes and needle valve on there way many thanks mudski

[threedogs]

@cuppa

how do you find the flooring board as a bench top? i need to make a new work bench and im undecided what i want to make the top out of

I've made a few work benches over the years the best one was 50 x 50 x 6 angle iron. It had a lower lockable section a big under top drawer
the top I inverted the angle and filled with 25mm timber x 2 then clamped and welded a sheet of 3mm steel on top, for electrical work
a piece of rubber matting up one end worked a treat. Wish I had it now, The one I made for home is made from 50 x 50 x2 rhs with 3mm top
solid as.