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Hi! I actually started to write about this little side project in my Taxi thread. But I feel it's somewhat off-topic and may have it's own thread. I wanted to build me a solid workbench for a long, long time. But never had enough time to really do it without having big breaks in between the build. I feel this is always distracting and I tend to not finish such projects. Anyway. I went to the local steel yard and bought about 16m of square tube, 50x50x2mm. Cut to size. Once I had it about level & square, I started welding the top frame and then put in the legs and braces.   Looks a bit naked, doesn't it? After the weekend, I went to the steel yard again and bought some more square tube and U profiles. These will serve as guides for drawers. Made a very fancy contraption to bring them all to the same level... Some wood cutoffs and g-clamps. Lol.   Also put a bit of angle iron into the bottom and welded in a sheet of 1.5mm tin I had left. You can see that the drawer rails on the right are shorter. This is for a reason.  Follow up in the next post... |
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The idea was to have a compartment for the welders, and also storage for the gas bottles. Like so:  This compartment will have a door, of course. Now - what I don't like on work benches are open doors. But the door would have to be open when using the welder. To avoid a door sticking out, I made these:  Established a position for them & some more guide rails...   ...and then made this:  Which goes here:  Basically a cheap version of a hidden hatch: Not perfect, but does the job. I like it! So much better than having a door that swings open and sticks out... |
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Then some more angle iron to make a foundation for the gas bottle compartment.  Cut out some more sheet metal... I had bought a 2000x1000x1.5mm sheet - which almost completely went into this...   After I had gone through the second cutting disc, I realised something... You may have noticed it too; it says "PLASMA" on my TIG-welder. And hey, it works! Who would have thought. Draw along a bit of steel clamped to the sheet - easy, quick & perfectly straight cut. Nice! Plasma cutter for the win!  And speaking of sheet metal... At the steel yard they call this sheet metal too:  |
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Unloading this monster of a sheet of metal was a bit nerv wrecking, but not that hard actually. Thanks to my fleet of Steinbock jacks.  At this point I was glad I never had lowered the Diesel-Coupé...  Parked over my "sheet" for the night. Some time during the build I added stops & rests to the hatch, to make operation smooth and give it a fixed end-position.  Then I had a very clever brain fart. Let's offer up the vice before I put on the "sheet"... Ha! Very glad I did check where the holes go...  Right into the frame! So I straped the pillar drill to the workbench and made some cut-outs.  And then welded in some tube I had left over from the intercooler build on the Coupé.  ^here you can also see the fnished top for the welder & bottle compartment. I felt like it would be nicer to have the bottles rest on a wooden floor. Next step: strap the pillar drill to my "sheet":  |
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Because... There's no way on earth I would be able to put it on the work bench by hand. So I drilled a hole right in the center. Put a bolt through, bolted a loop nut on, put a shekel through...  ...and we had lift-off!  |
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And now all that's left is basically to build the drawers and then - it's done   Sits about level, doesn't rock about. And, well - it's probably not going to move anywhere I can't push/lift it by hand. Estimated weight is about 250kg. So far I put ca. 30 meters of square tube & profiles in there. Took me a couple of days of slow & relaxed working (it's my years vacation after all...). And I'm very glad I finally took the time to build me a solid work bench. Which can also serve as a welding table. Cheers, Jan |
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MiataMark
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,971
Club RR Member Number: 29
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The door design is brilliant, (like the cookers they use on GBBO, which possibly won't mean anything to you). Makes my wooden bench that I though was sturdy look like a rickety side table!
What about protection from surface rust?
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1990 Mazda MX-52012 BMW 118i (170bhp) - white appliance 2011 Land Rover Freelander 2 TD4 2003 Land Rover Discovery II TD52007 Alfa Romeo 159 Sportwagon JTDm
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I can safely say that bench will not break .
My only concern is the gas bottles , they are supposed to be kept upright . I think thats to keep the liquid away from the valve mechanism . I guess it either freezes it or the liquid can expand in the valve and blow it ? Not sure .
Not being pendantic just want you to be safe !
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Hi! I'll keep the top plate grease/oiled - the rest - not decided yet. Might just let it rust slightly and then cover with linseed oil. should give a nice patina. Re: bottles: I have emptied countless bottles of welding gas lying flat on the ground... Welding gas is just compressed gas, not liquid gas. A propan bottle with liquid gas inside would be a different animal!! But welding gas (Argon & CO²) can be stored either way My concern is however heavy things falling on the valves, so I'll keep the covers on when not welding. |
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dubscum
Part of things
thats what i do
Posts: 531
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proper job!
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whip it, into shape ........ go forward
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Sept 4, 2016 10:11:30 GMT
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Hi! I'll keep the top plate grease/oiled - the rest - not decided yet. Might just let it rust slightly and then cover with linseed oil. should give a nice patina. Re: bottles: I have emptied countless bottles of welding gas lying flat on the ground... Welding gas is just compressed gas, not liquid gas. A propan bottle with liquid gas inside would be a different animal!! But welding gas (Argon & CO²) can be stored either way My concern is however heavy things falling on the valves, so I'll keep the covers on when not welding. Love it! My only concern would be leaving enough room to the side of the bench so i could get the gas cylinders out,without having to move stuff first. Also i''d close the gap round the cupboard bottom and the floor to stop that really unique bolt from dropping onto the floor and rolling underneath ...... Or is that just my bad luck!? |
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Sept 4, 2016 11:44:43 GMT
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Hi! That's the first thing I tried/mocked up - there's enough clearance to get the bottles out If just. And nope, that's not just you All gaps will be closed, by wood though. I plan to put up a big-ish wood plate behind the bench to hang tools. On the bottom - not sure yet. So far a magnet on a stick retrieved everything |
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Sept 4, 2016 18:03:23 GMT
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Ok. Your welding trolley is bigger than mine,hahaha
Nice job !
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Sept 5, 2016 10:10:26 GMT
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That looks ace, nice work!
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'73 Commer Campervan under full restoration, '83 VW T25 Doka under partial restoration to become rolling project, '04 Saab 9-3 Vector Sport modified and certainly not finished...
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Sept 5, 2016 14:50:45 GMT
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Thank you guys! @johnybravo: yours might be a bit easyer to push, though...  |
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Sept 7, 2016 12:38:05 GMT
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Great build, looks very solid. My only fear would be metal filings dropping down on to the welders which are right under the vice. Does the door for their compartment seal up tight?
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froggy
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,099
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Sept 8, 2016 10:22:51 GMT
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I keep a 2ftx18" piece of 6mm plate to work off when bench welding . Saves and splatter of hammer marks on the bench and slides around for repositioning stuff when Tig welding
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Sept 8, 2016 18:14:01 GMT
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Hi! Thank you! Re: filings; it's not "tight", but not open either. You'll see the pictures below; there's not even a very notable amount of dust on the welders after today's work. Once I have fitted a lock/latch of some sort, it'll do it's job. I don't want it too tight actually, air should ciculate and vent the compartment. Onto the final part of this little project; I bought a big piece of thick plywood.  Made this little contraption to cut dowel pins to size...  Sorted my tools and cut some wood and more dowels and drilled lots of holes into many thins...  ...until it looked like a carpenters workshop.  And then... Well, I hung my little wooden plywood board onto the wall behind the workbench:  Yepp - starting to look like a little workshop - like I wanted it for over 10 years! Yes, it took me this long to finally take the plunge and do it. My plan for my vacation was to rebuild the Taxi's suspension and put TÜV on the Coupé - instead I did this, with a very relaxed pace. And you know what? I'm glad I did. It's starting to evolve from a littered sh!thouse of chaos into a little less chaotic workshop Cheers, Jan |
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Sept 8, 2016 19:29:53 GMT
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You don't have enough hammers.... ;-)
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Sept 8, 2016 19:37:46 GMT
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I know... But; I've bought less than 30% of those tools. The rest is skip rescues, inheritance and presents But hammers - noone throws hammers in the bin. On the other hand; you can be gentle with a big hammer, but you can't beat the curse word out of something with a small one. So - this 1000g hammer is all I ever had & needed (my bodywork hammers are hidden elsewhere ;-) ) |
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