I've been using this commercial
workbench and it's okay, but it's definitely not wide enough
for the type of cabinets that I usually build. It also has way too many dog holes in it
that are spaced too tightly together, and it's just not as sturdy
as I would like because it doesn't have a lot of weight to it . So today I'm going to build a workbench that can solve all those problems,
and it's going to cost less than $150. I'm Brad from Fix This, Build
That. Let's build something awesome. The biggest cost
in making workbench is materials. So to keep it down, I'm going to be using
some southern yellow pine, which is construction
grade lumber for this build. It's going to allow us
to have a nice, thick, solid top. But the downside is that as we start
ripping this apart, since we have wider boards,
it may start to twist and turn on us. So let's cross our fingers
and hope that doesn't happen. So all of these boards were 12 footers,
which I have cut in half because this is the material
for the top of the workbench. I do have two different sized boards here,
two by tens, as well as two by sixes. Now, I really just want it all to by
sixes, but the quality just wasn't there. I can only get so many. And so I had to go to the two by ten because what I was looking for
is really have a nice edge on the boards because I'm going to be ripping them
down the center and then folding them up. And so that edge being clean is going to give me a nice clean top
with as little defects as possible. There's a lot of different options
as you go down the lumber aisle between sizes and types of wood. Now, right off the bat,
you might just be thinking, I'll just grab some two by fours
because they're cheap. Well, that's not usually a great idea
because they have a lot of small knots in them. And also those edges
can get really gnarly at times. And then the color of them
is going to range from this pale white and the white wood up to this
really splotchy pink that you'll see in some of those, which I don't even
honestly know what that species is. So what you want to do
is head to the back of the store and go where the large construction
grade lumber is. So your two by 6 to 2 by twelves,
because typically those boards are going to have much fewer knots. Even though the knots will be larger
because they come from the bigger trees. Now you can get them in lengths, anywhere from eight foot
all the way up to 16 foot. You could just go through those boards and pick out the ones that are the best
no matter what size they are, because you can figure out the cut list
to make it work for you. And if you've been a good woodworker,
maybe the Wood Fairy will have brought you some nice straight boards
with no knots in them at all, although they may just have some surprises
waiting for you inside. That did not take long at all. I was about a third of the way
through my second cut and it started bogging down on me. And that takes a lot
because this is a five horsepower table. So if I look down here at the back,
I can see that the board is pinching the rising knife. So I've had this happen to me before,
and I'm going to put some shims in between the wood to try to just open up that gap
so it's not closing down on the blade. Hopefully I will not have to do this
on every single board. But yeah. The joys of working
with construction lumber. I've got my big section of boards now
and I'm going to do three separate glue ups, and that's because the total top
is going to be 36 inches wide. And I want to be able
to playing each of these individually. So I'm going to do two sections of
nine boards and one section of ten boards. So to sort through the pile,
just looking at the defects and I'll make sure that the top
is as clear as possible and that there's no defect
showing on the outsides of those groups. So I can have a nice clean face
on the front of a workbench and rigged up a little
extension table here to the side of the bench that I can have
the full length of these boards. I kind of wonder like,
do you think the bench knows that I'm making its replacement
on top of it? Cold. All right. So I'm going to dove
into the glue up and there's a lot of surface
here to apply glue to. As I go through,
I'm going to clamp these to the boards because I don't want to wait till push everything together
until I get all the glue down because it might start tacking up on the
front side before I can get to the back. So wish me luck here. We're going to jump
in and see how it goes. That was not nearly enough, and that was probably far too much. This is not going well. Go faster. Got to go faster. Oh, we'll do that. Oh, why are you doing that? Stop! My gosh, this is a disaster. Oh. Okay. That was way more hectic than I expected for sure. I've done much wider groups and bigger,
but it's traditionally been wider boards with thin
edges, maybe one edge. So having that wide extra service here
makes this a lot more difficult. And the other culprit in the bigger
one was using the wrong glue. So I was using just the regular
type one original. So for this next one, I am going to use
the tight bond with the extended set time. I've even heard people using
epoxy, but yeah, that was kind of a disaster. But so this next one,
we're gonna change it up and hopefully it'll go a lot better. Oh, more. Now, one thing that you should definitely
watch out for is if you're boards do start to kind of crook or bow,
then that can show in the glue up. And so I had some boards here
that were a little wobbly, and that meant that the center
was lower than the sides because it was teetering
on this center clamp. So I went ahead and I use my electric
hand-held planer right here on the center. You could obviously do that
with a handheld planer as well. And so now it sits nice and flush
and there are other boards that were cup. So the center was up
and I did the opposite there. You could also use some clamping
calls on the top, in the bottom to help try to get them into alignment, because anything that's off, you're going
to have to clean that all down. It's going make your top a lot thinner. And I wish I hadn't
done that on the first loop. That'll do. And I've
got a couple of the glue shops here. And what I need to do now is get them all to the same thickness and make sure that
they're completely flat on both sides. Now, wrestling these monster slabs around was no easy feat,
and it was giving my planer all it could take. Now, that is a 15 inch planer,
and if you have something smaller, you may have to go to actually
four sections versus three like I did. And speaking of feet,
you want to make sure that you protect yours,
because if you dropping the slabs, you could break a toe or a foot
and that would be no bueno . I've been an ambassador
for Timberland Pro for three years now and they have a great selection
of safety boots and shoes. And my daily drivers
are the radius sneaker and they have a composite toe on them. But Timberland Pro
just released another version which is the radius knit slip on. And these are nice because they're flexible and lightweight
and they have that same safety toe on them. So they're not going
to restrict any movement, but they're going to protect your feet. And I love their base play t shirts
because they are comfortable, they're rugged and they're
moisture wicking, so they're perfect in the shop
when you're working up a sweat. So if you're looking for some quality work where you can check the links
down below in the description and I'll link to some of my favorites
and a big thank you to Timberland Pro for sponsoring today's video. All right to go up this monster,
I had to roll in my outfit table, and I had to shimmied up
on a bunch of different wood to get it at the same level. And now I have the width that I need. You can also just go ahead
and do it on the floor and just find the flattest spot you can. And after I get the glue on,
I will start tightening down the clamps and I'll use a mound to get all the seams
as level and even as possible. So it will have just a little cleanup
after it's all put together. Look at the size of this thing. This thing is huge. There is so much space here. It's like 36 inches. I don't know what
it actually turned out to be. And oh, wow, we're at actually 37
and a half inches. That is on more board than I supposed. I do have COVID right now, so my brain's a little foggy,
but this looks awesome. And now I'm going to cut it to sized. Spill. My Mountain Dew. High alert and high alert. Now getting a flat top is super important. And I just finished up working on the top
with this hand plane and basically it's
just knocking down the seams and then using my level just to check
where things needed to be lowered and doing that across. Now you can decide how close you want
to get that to flat. I am going to try to make it. Perfect because,
you know, that's kind of the guy. I am not a perfect guy, but the guy
who tries to be perfect but is not. You keep digging like this, you're
going to go straight through to China. Now, you can also use a belt sander
if you don't have a hand. That's an easy way to do it,
but it's going to generate a ton of dust. So you may want to do that outside. I don't use hand planes a lot
and I was getting some tear out where the grain changes
directions between boards. So you want to be careful if you are hand
planning, watch out for that. But you can finish off with a hand sander
and smooth everything out. And if you have a little bit of tear
out here and there, that's okay. This top is looking great.
Now I can move on to working the base. I'll come back later for the dog holes. All right. I went
ahead and cut all the parts for the base and I use the same methods
through the planer joiner and the table saw to get there. And I basically got these
to about the same size as a typical two by four, except of course,
these look a lot better. Now, I do have a few knots in there
because I was not as picky on these because
they're not going to be on the top. But I do have these ready for the base
and we'll do some assembly. But I cut everything to size
using this cut list and I do have plans available
if you want to build your own workbench or have laid down below in the description
where you can check those out. Right now I'll get into making the legs, which I'll show how those go together
to support the stretchers and the top . So the legs are going to be two pieces. They're going to be glued together
and that will give them a real nice, beefy, sturdy leg. Here's how the group's going to work. This is a full length leg
and this is the back side. And then I'm going to glue on to other
pieces, and it's going to make the joinery in between them. So one on the top
and then one in the middle. And I've got it up
on some little scraps here just so I'll have some room
to put the clamps on. It's going to go ahead and start
gluing these in place and use the spacers to make sure everything's good. So this is really slippery. So I'm just going to tack it in place
with some Two Inch Nails just to make sure
everything stays where I want it and repeat the same thing down. At this end, I use my spacer
to position this last longer. I'll set this aside
to dry and do the rest of it. I've got everything now
for the assembly, for the side. I went ahead and cut the stretchers
to length for the top and the bottom, and these will get
attached into the joinery. We made a little bit earlier, but before I do that,
I want to drill some holes in the underside of the top stretcher and those will be
for attaching the base to the top. I go ahead and pre assemble this and then I'm going to drill
some pilot holes because once you get glue in there, it's kind of like wrestling agrees to peg
your neck and starts moving all around. So let me go ahead and pre
drill in the drive it and then that way when I put the screws in it'll just go
right back in place where I put it. Everything is screwed together and I did check everything for Square,
so we're all good. Now I'm going to do this
one section at times. I'm just going to take this one off,
put the glue on, and then screw it back down
and then repeat it for the top and cover up the scrolls. I'm just gonna plug metals
and then flesh cut them off. With the signs done, we can start
to connect it and make the base. And so I cut the size, the supports
that are going to go across the top. I also drilled in some pocket hole
joints in here so that we can attach them and now allow us to conceal the joinery
and give us a nice, strong connection. And since I have this nice, huge top,
I'm going to use it to assemble the base. I'll go ahead and put this top piece
in place to act as a spacer, to make sure that everything
is nice and square. Before I move on and attach
the shelf stretchers. Is there a quick
public service announcement? If you have two different screw lights out
and you're not going to use the longer screw length,
just go ahead and put that away, because if you don't, you may end up going through your work piece and screwing
your clamps to the actual workbench. Oh, I put the two and a half inch screws in a two inch screw star. I have these nice little holes here
now in the front. I'm not going to fill it. I'm just going to leave it here, because we always need a reminder
that mistakes were made. We're not perfect and we're going to
move on and do the best we can. So. All right. This is the part of the project
that I'm actually been worried about the most,
and that is drilling the dog holes. I'm going to be doing a lot of holes,
and I need to make sure that it doesn't hit any of the support
pieces on the upper part of the base. Also, I don't know how
I want to drill them, so I've got a forced inner bit,
a spade bit and a self-driving spade bit. I went out and grabbed one of these. I bought this little drill
press attachment for the drill so that make sure that the holes
are straight up and down. And I chopped up the bits and I tried each of them on this off
cut to see how they cut. Now, the first bit I tried that one out first
and that thing was not cutting at all. It's trying to make
the cleanest the vessel, but my bit must just be really dull. Now, the second one that I tried out here, it was the spade bit,
and that one actually did pretty well, but the hole was a little bit oversize
and I just didn't like the accuracy of it. Now the next one, the auger bit,
that one is just way too aggressive. It blew out the hole on the top and I just don't really think
I would like that one. So if I had to pick out of the three
out of the spade bit, but I didn't really like any of them.
So I went out and bought this. And this is an bit that is not self driving, but it's specifically made
for cordless drills and it's supposed to be really clean
on the exit holes. So I'm hoping this is going to be
the best solution and I'll have links
to all these items that I use so you can check it out
and see exactly what it is that went really well, almost no blowout. And look at the fit on these
this first one super loose. The next one was still a little bit loose. This guy nice and tight
and you could just use a tape measure and a grid to mark out
the locations of your bench dogs. But I do want to have a perfect 90 degrees
so I can use it for clamping up frames and different things. And so I did use my X car, C
and C to make this template and I just went into easel
and I made these four inches on center. So there's a three quarter inch holes. But what I also did was I cut a edge
on both sides here of this corner to make sure that this was exactly 90
degrees for the first set of holes. I'm going to register this on the corner
and just clamp it down. I'm going to make sure that nothing
underneath is going to get hit. Then after I have a few holes in there,
I can start using the dog holes to register it as I move down
and make the whole series of holes, a whole series of holes
going to get hole up in here. All right. I've got three rows of holes
all the way along the front edge of the bench,
and that drill bit is a piece. That thing is amazing.
It's working really, really well. Highly recommended. At the beginning I mentioned my old bench had too many holes
and they are three inches on center. So the four inch on center on
these is going to help out. What I'm going to do is I'm only going to run
another row of three holes on each end and leave a large area on the bench
that doesn't have any holes at all. If I want to add more holes later,
I can just grab the template. I'll store this away somewhere and I can
easily add a few more in a few minutes. All right, look, the top is looking great,
and I put a little chamfer around each of the bench dog holes just to help to keep them from the edge
getting blown out. Now, I just need to get this
ready for finish. But as I was doing that, our editor
Chris came up with an awesome idea and he said we should put
a little customization to it and get a little nameplate for the front. And so I made this. And check this out. It's so cool. Since I had the car already going,
I went ahead and pulled our logo into the easel software and carved this out
a little roughing pass, then switched over to a 60 degree detail a bit
for all the little details of our logo. Then I backfill the letters with some
total boat, high performance epoxy, and I use the black obviously for the logo
and this and that, that and then the red with a little hint of black
to tone it down for the fix and the build. This is so cool. I think it's going to look awesome
on the front of the bench for the finish. I'm going to keep it easy
and go with an oil based finish because they're really easy
to repair versus a film based finish like polyurethane. I'm using Ruby harmonica
because it goes on really easy and it dries almost instantly
after you wipe off the excess. Goodbye, old friend. Here's a little bit
about how I'm going to use the workbench and some of the design considerations
that went into it. First of all, the size of it,
this is really nice because now I can fit my 31 inch parallel clamps across there
before they would fall off my own bench. Also with the dog holes, there are a lot of different
clamping options whether I want to put
something on its edge so maybe I can use a block plane on it,
or if I want to have some just dog holes in front to hold a panel in place
while I'm standing or doing any type of other joinery
that's going to work really well. Well, my favorite way of clamping
is using face clamps. And so I left a large overhang all the way around the work bench,
the same as my other one, and that allows me
to clamp things in place if I'm doing face frames or anything else. And speaking of the top, this thing is so
thick and sturdy and is super heavy, so I can't really move this thing around
if I'm banging on it. I did leave the shelf down below open because I aim to be adding
some modular storage down there. So I'm thinking maybe some drawers,
maybe some shelves. I'd love to hear your ideas. Let me know what your favorite storage method is for a workbench
or any ideas that you might have for that if you want to build your own.
I do have plans available. There's a link down
below in the description. I want to give a big
thank you to those folks that have enjoyed
the Fitbit Builders Club. And until next time, guys
get out there and build something awesome.
