My First Side Project of 2016: Building a Workbench
One of my resolutions for 2016 is to build stuff. Doesn’t matter what it is, whether it’s a physical object, website, or even a side business, I want 2016 to be the year of building and completing projects.
To kick off the new year I decided my first project would be a work bench. My wife and I recently bought our first house in October and I’ve been itching to build a workbench & add some storage to organize our garage.
The new workbench would be the starting point for a bunch of my other projects this year so it made sense to tackle it first.
To start I combed through Pinterest for the best workbenches and looked for modifications that I would want on my workbench. Even though the perception is that Pinterest is only good for weddings, crafts, and food recipes, there is a ton of great content there for woodworking and workshops and is perfect for visually searching.
I decided to base my design off a simple Family Handyman design and then customize it to make it longer, more durable, and add more storage.
After some slight tweaks to the design by my father we set out for Lowes to buy our materials.
My father has been a woodworking hobbyist for 30+ years and was a huge help to the entire project. We’ve done lots of projects together over the years and I have learned so much from him. Even after all those projects there are tons of little tricks of the trade he has shared that helped avoid mistakes or errors that you end up regretting later.
For example, did you know a 2x4 isn’t 2 inches by 4 inches?
And that most wood at home improvement stores isn’t actually straight?
We spent an hour at Lowes holding up kiln-dried 2x4s and looking down them to see if there were any curves or bends that wouldn’t make them lay flat and straight. We looked at about 100 pieces and selected the 20 straightest ones that would make our life easier when putting together the workbench. There’s nothing worse than finding out a project isn’t level, square, or plumb due to warped wood.
With all our supplies in hand we got to work building the framing for the main bench top and the lower shelf. For the lower shelf we put the front 2x4 rail and two inside supports horizontal so there would be more clearance between the ground & the shelf for future sliding drawers.
We then cut the middle section of the lower shelf and put a joist half way back so that a stool could fit there. The idea was that it could be used sitting down at the workbench and would also comfortably fit underneath the bench to be out of the way when standing.
Next we attached all the legs and installed the lower shelf.
It’s starting to look like a workbench!
One adjustment that we made on the fly just before attaching the legs was to notch the top of the middle two legs so that they would face inwards and would be less in the way of the primary standing/sitting space. Looking back this was a great decision and makes the space much more comfortable.
We then built the top shelf out of 2x4’s for the frame and plywood for the shelves. A nice touch was using the router to make all the edges curved and smooth.
The next step was to build the workbench top and lower shelf top. We decided to use medium-density fibreboard (MDF) instead of plywood or particle board as it is much stronger, denser, and will hold up to bangs and bruises that come upon a workbench.
We took the recommendation of Start Woodworking to both screw and glue two pieces of MDF together for an extra strong workbench top. We countersunk screws to drill up through the bottom piece, glued the top piece down, and then clamped it all together for a tight fit.
Now that the workbench top was glued together, we cut it to the final size, routed all the edges, and attached it to the frame with pocket holes. The Kreg jig allowed us to make pocket holes going from the frame up into the MDF so that the workbench top would be completely smooth with no screw holes.
I found an idea on Pinterest that really inspired me for a custom modification. I found photos of people who put a hole in their countertops in the kitchen to easily swipe crumbs and food into the trash. I thought that would be perfect for the workbench so we clamped down a fence around the desired location of the hole so that we could use a router.
The router didn’t work great to cut away all the material so first we roughly cut the hole with a jigsaw and then used the fence to route the edges to make them smooth. We placed tabs underneath and put in screws so that an insert could sit on top of them and be flush with the table top. The final product looked exactly how I envisioned it which usually doesn’t happen and I am really happy with it.
At this point we were so close to being finished I was getting really excited. We attached the two back legs to the top shelf and the work bench and it turned out to be strong enough that we didn’t add the two front ones that were in the original plan. We put a notch in the center back of the bench for a middle post to give the top shelf more support and then added 2x2s to drill the pegboard into.
The finished product in all of it’s glory!
This was a really fun project to kickoff 2016. There’s something about making stuff and building with your owns hands that is so rewarding and I’m excited to use this workbench for years to come.
Special thanks to my Dad for helping and teaching me every step of this project, I couldn’t have done it without him.
Make sure to follow me on Medium if you’d like to see the projects that I make the rest of the year.
