Shop Updates

Bill Arnold

1974
Staff member
Messages
8,622
Location
Thomasville, GA
Starting last year, I began to see parts of my work table system suffering from age and my pounding on them unmercifully at times. What had been solid had become much less so. The closer I got to trying to set up to flatten the hunk of Michigan chocolate the Ambassador brought down here in March, the more I realized I had to do some preparation - more than I thought. Ten years ago when I built my shop, I put together some interconnected tables using MDF. It was rock solid and dead flat - for many years.

Here's the original layout:

TS_OA01.jpg


I approached the updates from two directions: a REAL work bench and firming up my router table as a stand-alone.

For the work bench, I started with a 96" x 30" x 1.75" laminated maple bench top made in Michigan and sold through Grizzly. I added legs for each end with steel units from Amazon. For the center support, I made a single leg with PVC pipe. All legs have levelers in the bottoms.

100_1364.jpg


To firm up the router table, I removed the fence, then flipped it on its top. I removed the MDF legs and apron, replacing them with plain old pine lumber. I jointed some pieces of 2x4, glued them together, then jointed and planed them to 3 1/8" by 2 5/8" to make new legs. Pine 1x4's were used for the new apron and stretchers. The resulting assembly is dead flat and large enough to support a lot of future work.

100_1362.jpg

Thanks for looking!
 
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