Make This Mini Portable Workbench!

[Music] to make this mini workbench I'll be using a lot of scrap two by fours and furring strips now this is something I've been wanting to make for a while something I could bring with camping to try out carving but every time I looked at one at the store they would cost easily a few hundred dollars so I decided to make one myself the first part I had to make was the main body of the workbench so for that I had to first map out just a quick diagram with blue tape so I could get a rough size of the workbench and then cut down a bunch of two by fours to 19 inches these will be trimmed down later to 18 inches but I first needed the rough size before it glue up and planing [Music] speaking of planing it was now time for me to Mill up all the two by fours and two by fours and furion strips can take a while to Mill up Square because they can be a little wonky but they also have round overs on all the edges so you do have to remove a lot of material [Music] once I had all my pieces milled up I was ready to glue everything together for the workbench top now originally I wanted the workbench top to be 14 inches wide and because of that it wouldn't fit through my planer so I made two separate chunks that I would then send through playing down to an even thickness and then glue back together I later changed my mind to make it only 12 inches wide but because I started this way there was extra glue up and extra planing [Music] while waiting for glue to dry I started working on the Vise now I've never made a vise before so I'm just winging it here but I started by cutting down a furring strip and 2x4 to the same width as the workbench top next I had to Mill everything up uh nothing new here just like what I did before starting with the jointer to get things square and then going over the planer to get the right thickness what does matter for these two pieces is making sure the furring strip and the workbench top match the height of the two by four as you can see here about this time I realized I could make simple legs on the workbench by matching a furring strip on the opposite side of the Vise this is where I could have saved a lot of time if I plan more ahead of time I could have bashed everything out on the jointer and planer but I did not sew here's where I am here's where I realized I wanted the bench top to be narrower than 14 inches so I trimmed it down to 12 inches and then got everything squared up nicely on the miter saw after this I was able to take the entire thing and send it through the planer to get to parallel faces to attach it I'm just simply using screws no reason to overthink it here and once I had the legs attached to the top I was able to start drilling out holes both for the threaded insert in the middle but also for two guide rails on the sides device requires a nut on the inside to stay so it can clamp the edge of the Vise like into the workbench body so for this I'm just digging out a little bit of material and then using another piece to sandwich in a nut that the threaded insert will screw through next I had to make a collar for the Vise this side to drill two holes one down the center for the threaded insert where it can be permanently attached the other at the end for the Vise handle I think is the right name the thing you use to tighten it but anyway I cleaned it up a bit on a sander and then I was ready to get it permanently attached to the threaded Rod which I made a mistake here I used wood glue that's all I had on hand you should really use something like five minute epoxy here I'm attaching this plate this plate is just sandwiching the nut for the threaded Rod so that that way you can compress the Vise plate against the workbench I also needed guide rails so I cut out some dowels and then gave them a good coat of paste wax so they'd slide in and out easily because all these are doing is keeping it from twisting I also kept things simple here just using screws to lock those in place on the Vise plate or face one of those has got to be the right name I sanded it down with a little bit of glue just to fill in some of the holes just to make it look nice and then after that I was ready to add a quick little round over around the whole outside of the Vise just to clean that up a little bit after adding the round over I was ready to add all of the dog holes now for this I didn't really follow any particular pattern I just tried to get them everywhere where I thought if I was carving a small chunk of wood I'd be able to clamp it in place for this I use my cheap homemade dog hole jig I do have a video on this on my channel I'll also post a link in the description after I was done with that I could add roundovers to each one of the dog holes just to help make it easier when you're taking some type of dog hole clamp or tool it's easier to slide in and out of the dog holes with that I added a couple coats of water-based polyurethane I tried spraying it for the first time it is a little tricky but it's honestly way easier than brushing even with a foam brush after the polyurethane dried I was able to do a quick sanding to get rid of any kind of bumps or imperfections and then I was ready to start assembly here you can see a better shot of Heim sandwiching in the nut for the threaded insert super simple just use some clamps to get in place and then screw it in the final step was adding the Vise handle which I made out of a half inch dowel capped off with these three quarter inch dowel chunks so I just made sure to drill holes in everything so that the screws would not split anything and then I attached it to the vice collar got everything threaded back into place and then I was finally ready to test out the mini workbench all right

Channel: Fanger Woodworking

Views: 21,737

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Id: aSDzHLyt8o4

Length: 7min 8sec (428 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 12 2023