Critique my work bench ideas

Currently in the middle of remodeling the garage and one item that I really wanted in this whole process was a workbench. I do not do crazy Fab work or anything too heavy duty but on occasion do you need a solid bench to do some stuff on. a lot of small engine repair, motorcycle repair, and your regular daily driver maintenance. On occasion some light fabbing of brackets and what not.

I have come up with two designs using harbor freight tool boxes. I currently already own one 44 inch chest.

One idea simply adds another set of 44 in harbor freight chests. Somehow I fix them together in between and add a common benchtop for the two of them.

The second idea is to build a bit of a bench/frame for the 44 inch box and then buy one, possibly two of the smaller harbor freight lower tool boxes and have those each with a work top. That way the 44 inch box remains stationary and the two smaller tool boxes can be rolled out for extra work surface.

due to the small size of the garage I do not foresee having much more room to build another workbench so this idea, in either iteration, will be about it.

Thoughts? Input? Critiques?

Take the wheels off the boxes, build an angle iron frame to carry both of them together and put wheels on the frame.

Solid door or Ikea butcher block for the top.

If you need a cart to move around, pick up one of the three-level retro-style ones at Ikea while you're there. I use on at work and I like it a lot better than the bigger snap-on style carts.

There are over a dozen build threads of exactly this idea over at garage journal

I built my bench out of two 22" boxes with a single 18" side cab in between. The stainless bench top I had was a perfect fit. I keep thinking about expanding it with another 22 and 18 with a long piece of butcher block as the top surface

I do wish I had at least taken off the casters or welded up a base since I manage to push it around when I am (forcefully) working with things in the vice. 

I love the working height as a 6" tall human. 

Frankly, if the 22 and 18 inch pieces were available in white I would redo my kitchen base cabinets this way. 

I like the idea of making sure there is a solid base, but having at least one of the cabinets able to roll out would be nice, or make sure you have a bit of open space at the bottom..  I tend to stand close to the bench, and my feet go under it.  Would be really annoying for them to keep kicking the bottom of the cabinet.

mine. Built out of used kitchen cabinets and two sheets of 3/4 ply is the top. Has held up to a phenomenal amount of abuse

I think it is always nice to have a section where you can sit on a stool with your legs under the bench for detail work.

In reply to Jumper K Balls (Trent) :

I see a G13B.

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

I need to do this in my garage.

People are starting to sell their kitchen cabinet for a pretty penny lately, though.

 

I was on garagejournal a whole lot and was inspired by the Steevo bench build. Had the prints from him and everything just could pull the trigger.

Pirate 4x4 had a variation of it too with build in hitch receivers so you could add tools as needed

Yup.  It's a pretty common idea.  No right or wrong answers, really.  Just whatever suites your needs.  Sometimes you won't know until you try one of them.  I'd probably try your "B" option while making sure switching to "A" is possible in the future. 

Probably one of the more tedious parts of "B" would be switching the fixed casters to swivels, unless the tool box is already empty and can be done easily.

I have two 44" cabinets side by side. I never really thought about removing the casters before, but now that they are full of tools, they stay in place anyway. This setup has worked well for me for several years now, but I am planning to move them to the corner soon. They will be 90 degrees from one another,  and I'll build a small corner table between them to allow for the drawers to open and so I slide a stool under there.

ShawnG said:

Solid door or Ikea butcher block for the top.

A couple months ago I picked up IKEA butcher block for a row of floating cabinets in my office. They were blowing it out at something like 40% off. Was back there this weekend and noticed they no longer offer a "real wood" butcherblock as an option—only faux. Bummer.

In reply to ebelements :

That sucks.

My last toolbox top was a solid core door from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, cost me $25.00.

You say it is in a small garage so therefore I'm assuming it will stay in one spot. I would take the wheels off and if you don't like the height make a stout set of legs. That way you can put a vise on top and not have the whole bench move when you are using it.

My tool/equipment box is NEXT TO the bench.

The bench itself is a 30"x60" (IIRC) piece of tabletop on top of four legs made from 4x4s.  The 4x4s have a crossbrace on the sides and the back but not the front.  This way, I can stick engines on furniture dollies and wheel them under, or slide heavy Rubbermaid bins under.

The bench is exactly high enough that I can walk an RX-7 transmission under it upright.

Point of the story is, you need to define what you need to do with the valuable space under the bench.  I like to stick large things under it, because small things can go on shallower (18") shelving that lines the walls.

Good advice all around here, thanks for chiming in.

I have a bench top all ready to go--picked up a solid core monster of a door a few weeks ago in preparation for this.  113lbs of door. I think that part is covered. Plus one of our vendors does steel fab and I could get a piece to put over it if i wanted/needed.

Still have not gotten my mind made up either way. Harbor Freight has the best pricing on the 44 inch toolboxes this weekend and I think Ill pick one up. 

Start with that maybe? I am not sure

One thing that may be worth adding is a couple of brackets attached to each end of the assembly so you can anchor the bench to wall studs when  you may need to crank on something in a vice.

I'm torn on the idea of benches being any larger than absolutely necessary. Mostly because of my own clutter problems and the fact that in my house any flat surface tends to collect stuff.

ebelements said:

ShawnG said:

Solid door or Ikea butcher block for the top.

A couple months ago I picked up IKEA butcher block for a row of floating cabinets in my office. They were blowing it out at something like 40% off. Was back there this weekend and noticed they no longer offer a "real wood" butcherblock as an option—only faux. Bummer.

Menards has decent pricing on butcher block counter tops. 

In reply to Jumper K Balls (Trent) :

 

I love the working height as a 6" tall human. 
 

damn Trent you tiny

Patrick said:

In reply to Jumper K Balls (Trent) :

 

I love the working height as a 6" tall human. 
 

 

damn Trent you tiny

Dang that errant shift key!

In reply to Knurled. :

My work bench is set up exactly like this.

Currently has three different Rubbermaid cabinets under it to store random crap I don't feel like leaving out; all were gotten for free while I was living in an apartment.

Having usable space under at least one workbench is ideal.

FuzzWuzzy said:

People are starting to sell their kitchen cabinet for a pretty penny lately, though.

They sure are.  People used to put them beside the road for free curbside pickup.  Now they want several hundred for them.  

As an update:

I went out on Black Friday (sigh, I know) and purchased a 44" Harbor Freight toolbox. 

Ill either bolt them together and put a solid door top on it / just put a top on it without bolting them together

OR

talk to our fab shop and price out a frame for them to sit in as posted above.

Thanks for all your input, ideas and discussion

Figured I would pop back in here with some updates.

I really like the  Steevo Bench designs and variations that people have come up with which essentially creates a frame around the toolbox to provide a solid surface for a workbench and allows variation in bench height.

I have spent an absurd amount of time trying to figure out what will work best for me for the home garage workshop. (overthinking is my superpower) I think I have things mostly figured out. 

I got a bunch of 3x3x.25 angle for free that should be plenty to do enough bench for two HF 44 toolboxes.  Actually its way overkill in terms of thickness but again, it was free so its what I will use. The Steevo bench uprights are 1/8 thick and the horizontal pieces are 3/16 thick so I am sure it will be plenty strong.

Sketch A shows how the front angle rail will connect. Steevo has it welded on but a common variation is to have it bolted on with a welded nut. I will do the same as it will make loading the HF 44 box much easier.

Sketch B shows two different leg designs. The top one would just be to run the angle down as the leg. The bottom one would be end the angle design the the base of the design and have the leg be a piece of 2x2 or 3x3 box steel as the leg.  Either design may include levelling legs to aid in getting the work top level as the garage is not totally level.  The only other thing that pops in my head is that I still might want the ability to roll this setup around as the garage evolves/ cleaning/ etc so casters with levelling legs might be an option. (If not I could move it with some furniture or car dollys and a jack I suppose)

Sketch C Shows the basic idea of the frame and how the angle iron would be used and how it would look.  The top would be a solid core door, possibly topped with steel if our fab shop has leftovers. (One issue I see is that I have 3x3 angle and the orientation it sits at currently is too tall which would overlap and block drawers from opening. I could trim it a bit)

Lastly, the bottom left sketch shows an added leg and a trailer receiver. Neat idea but not critical.

I knows its a bit of brain drain here but I am starting to pull all my ideas together.  If anyone has any ideas or crituques I am all ears.

EvanB said:

Menards has decent pricing on butcher block counter tops. 

So does Grizzly, if you're near one of the showrooms you can save on shipping.