New workbench

When I set up my new workroom about 5 years ago I decided to go the cheap workbench route.
I bought a piece of Formica kitchen counter and mounted it on the wall with angle iron.
I've been fighting with the darn thing ever since.

It's perfectly level length wise. But width wise is a totally different story. Towards the backplash, level and good. As you move to the front edge not good at all. Maybe they are designed this way to keep water from flowing off the edge? Anyway not having a flat level surface to work on has been a real problem.

So when Harbour Freight had this workbench on sale, I bought it.
Haven't opened the box yet, but the darn thing is freakin' heavy.
I have Monday off and plan to put it together then.

Cleaning off the old workbench is going to be a bit of a chore, but it really needs it anyway..........

My work bench is nothing more that a Bugle Boy table that was given to me from my old corporate job. They had no use for it but it made for a decent work bench. Keep us posted on how the one you bought works out for you.

Yeah I've used old card tables in the past, but I really like a good solid surface that doesn't wobble.
That's one reason I mounted the counter top to the wall rather than rest it on filing cabinets as I've done in the past.

Besides being a workbench, it will also double as an aquarium stand as my current bench does.

So I opened up the box. More assembly that I was hoping for.
Not Ikea level, but I was hoping the drawers at least would be preassembled.
Now Ikea at least has pretty clear, well illustrated instructions.
This beast has a book with a few pictures and words that they claim to be assembly instructions.

Anyway, here is a look at the opened box.

BTW, ended up paying only $130 or so for the beast.
Can't beat the price.
First look, the quality of the wood looks pretty good.

Bone Daddy said:

Yeah I've used old card tables in the past, but I really like a good solid surface that doesn't wobble.
That's one reason I mounted the counter top to the wall rather than rest it on filing cabinets as I've done in the past.

Besides being a workbench, it will also double as an aquarium stand as my current bench does.

So I opened up the box. More assembly that I was hoping for.
Not Ikea level, but I was hoping the drawers at least would be preassembled.
Now Ikea at least has pretty clear, well illustrated instructions.
This beast has a book with a few pictures and words that they claim to be assembly instructions.

Anyway, here is a look at the opened box.

BTW, ended up paying only $130 or so for the beast.
Can't beat the price.
First look, the quality of the wood looks pretty good.

Click to expand...

FWIW- I had one and added one extra shelf above the stock one just for clamps and sandpaper and shot in 2x4's on each leg. threw some MDF on top and could rebuild trannies and pumpkins on it. It's real easy to frame up a pegboard backer for it too. Sold it to a buddy for $100 bucks when I bought another house without a garage (dammit!). These are a great price point and worth the effort. Congrats!

I've got one of those benches. It's quite nice, actually. Enjoy!

I've been wanting to get one of those Harbor Freight benches for a long time. Right now I work from a roll top desk and a 30" door across two sawhorses.

Yup did the door thing too.
For awhile it was a rather architecturally hip thing to do.

So far this thing looks like a sweet deal, which does not call to mind everything I have bought from HF.
I should add that they recently opened a store a few miles from work so there was no shipping charge.

A question for you guys:

I want to make it a worktable so I can sit at it rather than a stand in front of it.
It doesn't look too hard to do.

Am I deluding myself?

OK

Went together easy enough.

All in all the quality is pretty good.
Especially the legs and the top which are rock solid.

After building the first drawer w/o glue, I used glue on the other 3.
I'll only be using 3 drawers anyway.

If I had paid full price, I might be more disappointed with the rawer slides than I am.
I would pay a bit more for good ball bearing slides.
This may be easy enough to do if they continue to bug me.

I'll post some pix tomorrow.

Bones

Here is a dirty pic of mine a while ago...poor lighting but that is fixed now!

Bone Daddy said:

Yup did the door thing too.
A question for you guys:
I want to make it a worktable so I can sit at it rather than a stand in front of it.
It doesn't look too hard to do.
Am I deluding myself?

Click to expand...

Nope-pretty easy. The shelf serves as a tie to hold the correct dims for the legs so you just replace the shelf with an 'X' (cross brace) in back and mitre some stock 45 degrees to go from the legs to top at each end. The only drawback would be countersunk holes thru the top to the brackets. I dropped a 2x4 across the back on the floor to make it more stable and serve as a base for my peg board framing. You could also cut out a 'knee hole' in the shelf if you want to keep it. You could get as fancy as you want with trim moulding.

Congrats on the new bench. I have a similar bench from Sam's club (years ago), only has 2 drawers. I ended up tacking/gluing 1/4" scrap plywood spanning the legs on each end. It really stiffened up the bench. I use it for rockets and woodworking.

Highly recommend either the pegboard on the back or at least a short fence at the rear of the bench like the backsplash you had. These benches are narrow enough that I am always losing stuff off of the wall side. One day I'll fix that, yeah.

I have been eying this HF bench as a dedicated modeling bench:

https://www.harborfreight.com/multipurpose-workbench-with-lighting-and-outlet-99681.html

Its a little smaller, has a pegboard back board, and light and outlet strip and is only $79.99 with the current super coupon. Its looks to be much lighter duty, but ok for model rockets.

dc

Yeah it looks like the seating bit is no problem.

For now I just left out the bottom shelf and one of the drawers.

It will need some cross bracing as mentioned or I might just tie it into the wall.

Back splash of some kind for sure, even if I do tie it to the wall.

Anyway, here's a quick pic of the before (actually the still now ) and the after (or soon to be after).

One of my spring break goals was to complete the instal of my new workbench.

The height is awkward - too tall for a chair, too short for a bar stool.
So for now I used a few 2x4s to lift up the bench so I can use a bar stool.
Still not ideal, but better.

My plan is to shorten the legs on the bar stool to fill without the extra 2x4s.

I left one drawer out so my knees can fit under the bench.
I was able to use the bottom shelf.

The top is a piece Formica faced particle board.
There is a 4 inch overhang.

I didn't install the vice, but may end up trying it out.

All in all I'm very pleased with the end product, especially considering the price.

And, it's a real pleasure to finally have a flat, level work surface.

I find the vices (mine has one on the end as well as the front) handy, sometimes for holding parts, sometimes to hold jigs I put together for other purposes. They never seems to be in the way, I recommend installing the one you have. After all, an extra vice or two can spice up life.

dc