Benches

Hi all,

Just in case ur interested......this is my fettling bench.....75x75x6mm angle iron legs, 10mm steel plate top.....

The drawers and welder run on ball bearings.....would like a bigger top but no room......for work I have to move it with a pallet truck, prob weighs about 350kg......I'm always making brackets etc etc plus heavy plate work.....

Sorry can't get the photos the right way up.....

Cheers. Clogs

I made my main workbench from some discarded pallets that stainless steel sheet for aircraft work were delivered on, because they were made of hardwood, beech I believe.

A visit to my local reclamation yard and a word with the man in charge resulted in him showing me some very hard waterproof plywood with a plastic laminate outer ply. These, he explained had been used as shuttering on some concrete bridge building and had to be strong to withstand the weight of concrete and had to be waterproof so that it did not disintegrate while wet.

The trade name 'PERI' is printed all over the plastic but no doubt other makes exist. It is VERY hard wearing!

Other benches for assembly of models, laying out drawings or supporting light machinery were made from lengths of kitchen worktop material being sold off cheap from B&Q because the pattern was being replaced.

Edited By Brian Hutchings on 27/11/2016 18:38:34

Just made 2 benches for my wife's studio. Tops are 8 ft x 2ft, 25mm MDF. Sides/legs are 4 x 4x2, glued and screwed to 12mm ply panels, 400mm wide. at the back are two 12mm ply boards, about 25 cm wide, one near the feet and the other at the top, screwed and glued to the sides. The MDF tops are braced by 4x2 timber at the back and underneath, and the tops also supported by drawers in the centre. So basically a 4-sided box. Benchtops are sealed with 3 coats of PVA woodglue, slightly thinned with water; then painted with 3 thick coats of floor paint to produce a hard wearing finish. These are fine for general work, probably not for machine tools to sit on, but very quick to build. Height of each bench is just over 1 metre. Sorry about the dimension cocktail!

Personally, am wary of timber, because it can move according to temperature and humidity.

Fortunately, before retiring, was able to buy some redundant steel benches (60" x 24" , with 1/8" steel top) from my workplace, 2 inch angle or box section framing, . The lathe, all 300Kg of it sits on some ex Supermarket warehouse staging. I was amazed at how strong and stiff it is,(3" x 2" galvanised box section beams, mounted on diagonally braced channel section end frames. Shelves, above and below, using the same beams, add extra bracing. The machine benches sit on 2.5" x 2.5" angle iron bearers to spread the load on the floor.

The bench under the RF25 is reinforced with 2.5 x 2.5 angle to form runners for drawers.

The tops are high by most peoples standards, but as already said, minimise bending and the resultant backache.

Probably overengineered, but stable and pretty immovable, and excellent value for money, as all bought as scrap!

The chap who bopught my ML7 mounted it on a frame of angle iron, with all joints welded. Again, a rigid construction, which is the objective.

Howard