The Modern Workbench

hey this is kam with blackdel studio and this week i'm going to show you how to make a dead flat workbench that is loaded up with features like a replaceable sacrificial top tucked away mobile workbench and a pegboard that can hold a couple thousand pounds stay tuned this first peg board that i'm going to show you is going to look very familiar to most everybody out there it is that standard pressed board round hole pegboard that basically everybody's grandfather in the entire world has a sheet of this hanging up in their garage you can get it from your local box store it's like 40 bucks a sheet it takes these round pegs that seem like a good idea but every time you remove a tool the peg falls on the workbench and it is very very frustrating the solution i found to those old primitive mdf pegboards was these galvanized steel pegboards and i am a very black and white and grey personality you can tell by the way i dress most the time if you are a little bit flashy personality they make these in like blues and yellows and purples and blacks and all kinds of powder coated colors i like the galvanized finish i think it looks really really cool so i went with the full galvanized finished and there was a couple mistakes i made that i corrected later i didn't know they made horizontal panels so you can see that i mounted those sideways and i was planning on just using those old round pegs and the other mistake they made was not pulling those outlets up flush so i'll show you how to pull those outlets up flush at the end of the video but this was right when i moved into my shop i was desperate to get my tools off the floor just up onto the wall not even organized i just wanted them up out of the way so i kind of rushed this process but again stick around to the end of the video and i'll show you how to flush mount those outlets i'll share with you later in the video the hooks and pegs that i found myself using most frequently but i do recommend getting a pretty wide assortment because you never know exactly what you're going to use and the last thing you want is to get a new tool or accessory and not be able to get it up on the wall i thought for a long long time about how do i best build a workbench that is first off dead flat but also adjustable so i didn't want to weld it in place steel workbench i wanted one that i could adjust if say i got a different miter saw down the road and here's what i came up with this is aluminum extrusion and i shouldn't say that i came up with this this is what they build cnc tables out of so you know that it's going to be dead flat you know that you can make it in any size and i've just never seen anybody do a miter saw station out of it and i'm sure i'm dead positive that somebody out there has a youtube video making a miter saw station out of aluminum extrusion so i'm not saying that i'm the first person but i will say that i didn't see it anywhere else before i built mine this aluminum extrusion is very user friendly this is also known as 80 20. the only thing you need to be conscious of is make sure you get the right fittings for your particular series this is 15 series which means it's an inch and a half in diameter but then they also have millimeter series so a 20 series is actually smaller than the 15 series so it can be a little bit confusing that way i will include links to everything in the video description for the pieces that i got but again make sure you get the right fittings for your particular series and i thought that this was probably just about right for a miter saw station it's not super sturdy so if you are a blacksmith and you're gonna be working an anvil on top of this i would probably get something a little bit more substantial i never really designed these things on a computer or on paper before i start i kind of design everything in my head and that seems to work pretty well for me some of you probably would go crazy with the way i do things but what i'd come up with is i was going to do a half inch mdf top on top of this extrusion and then on top of that i was going to have a quarter inch sacrificial replaceable top so i needed that three quarter inch spacing between the extrusion and my peg board and that's why i was using that three quarter inch plank of hardwood there you can actually make these cuts with a regular wood miter saw when you're cutting aluminum i have a metal saw so i figured i might as well use it but if you want a more turnkey kit since building this bench i found a company that actually pre-fabs these where you can send them exactly what you want and they will draw up your particular design then send you a kit that you can just bolt together and i was very happy with this setup but i will say their quality is much much better than mine and it's what i use for the outfeed table on my table saw which i will have a video on that in a few weeks you can probably start to see how this workbench is going to come together and you can save yourself some money and not have to have legs at the rear of your bench by just drilling a few holes in the extrusion and then attaching it to a couple of studs with construction bolts like i did here i did get a new miter saw for this because i was building this custom fit i wanted it to be where i would slide a board right across the top of that mdf top and it would sit just perfectly flush on top of my miter saw so here's how i came up with that just use my combination square found the exact height marked the height there and now i'm just going to build a little mini floating shelf that's going to attach right at those marks i will talk about these rolling workbenches a little bit later in the video because i built that one a little bit oversized for a very specific reason but as far as attaching this floating shelf for your miter saw it's always easier to shim your miter saw slightly up once it's in place than to bring it down so i am putting it just barely under those marks and that way i can shim it up to the exact height that i want it if you are watching one of my videos for the very first time first off thank you so much i do appreciate you watching and if you have seen my videos before if you've been around for a while you know that i have transitioned from a weekend warrior diy guy to a full-time woodworker content creator which is a crazy transition for me but if you haven't seen my videos before you probably don't know that i am really good about answering basically every single question and comment that you guys ask below so if you aren't sure about what's happening on any particular process don't hesitate to ask i will read your comment i will respond i even respond to the really crazy weird troll comments out there the only thing i ask in return that is if you get something from this video if you enjoy what you're watching hit that little subscribe button hit that bell notification right now because like i said this is my job now this is how i make my living by the subscribers buy those views so i do appreciate your support and do not hesitate to ask if you need anything before you get too confused trying to find this 90 degree bracket for extrusion this one was actually just from home depot that is just a regular house framing 90 degree bracket and i found a way to adapt it for this extrusion just used these carriage bolts drilled the holes there and a couple of tapcon concrete anchors which are actually really cool concrete anchors that bolt right in if you look closely through a lot of my videos you'll see that i use playing cards a lot for shims and it's for a good reason they are the plastic playing cards so they are very hard they don't really compress much at all and they make a very accurate shim so you can just adjust it up ever so slightly using those little playing cards there are a lot of ways to attach mdf to this aluminum extrusion and i don't love the solution that i came up with it works and it's going to be plenty strong enough but there are more elegant ways i guess would be one way to put it the proper way would probably be to use regular machine screws and those t-nuts that i used before but that would have been a lot more work and those little t-nuts are actually kind of expensive so i had a whole bunch of these sheet metal screws left over so i drilled a slightly recessed hole and this self-tapping sheet metal screw is gonna screw directly into the aluminum and hold it down dead tight one of the things that i was most excited about for this workbench was having a sacrificial top a top on it that i could use and abuse and then a couple years down the road replace and make it look brand new again so this is what i found i called a local plywood supplier and they weren't just a plywood they were a complete hardwood dealer so if you have any specialty dealers they would probably be who i would call and it is actually melamine it's black melamine quarter inch thick they make it in all kinds of different thicknesses and different colors as you know i like my grays my black so this was going to be a perfect fit for my shop this double-sided tape was not my invention i read this online for other people that were attaching their sacrificial tops to their workbenches i am still a little bit skeptical on it but i have been using that double-sided tape for a long long time when i'm doing inlays like my bow ties and it is very very strong so i think it will actually probably be fine but again the jury is still out on how well this is actually going to work i mentioned i got a new miter saw for my new miter saw station and here is what i decided to get this is a 12 inch bosch glide miter saw this is not a sponsored post i paid for this with my own money just like you would and anymore i feel like i can make most all of my miter saw cuts on my sliding table saw i just like the idea of having a slightly larger blade for those really thick kind of beam cuts so that is why i decided to go with the 12 inch miter saw here and you can see i have more of my favorite playing card shims bringing that height of the miter saw to just barely above the height of the surrounding workbench and here i finally got those replacement wall control panels that were properly oriented for the horizontal mounting and decided to cut the holes with my cutoff wheel here for those outlets i don't know that cutting this is the best for the galvanize so if you live on the coast it might not be the best idea but i'm not going to be too worried about rust here and i found these really cool outlet extenders make sure to turn your power off especially all around this galvanized steel but i found these little plastic inserts there that you can just slide over and that will bring that box out for a nice clean flush mount look i just got my fireplace installed and thought i would give you guys a full tour of this basically one wall workspace i added a few more wall control panels over here for things like extension cords and cleaning supplies and before you ask this is actually safer than code i know it looks close but we could have actually gone another like six inches closer to the wall so we are plenty safe there one of the things that i really like is having all of my nuts and bolts and screws front and center so i don't have to go rifling through a drawer these are called view tanners they are very handy they keep all of my woodworking screws and i've written the size and the size so i know which drill bit to grab for the corresponding screw makes it very handy i am definitely not the guy that is going to ever shadow his pegboard where they put the little stencil up there and you can see the outline of exactly where the hammer goes and every particular screwdriver because mine is going to stay very fluid i like to change it adjust it find out what works what doesn't work so there's going to be a lot of changes down the road i need to work on some additional dust collection improvements for this saw but what i have so far is this oneida dust deputy hooked to a five gallon bucket which is hooked to my old rigid shopvac and it is all automated by this ivac switch so when i turn my saw on it will automatically start the vacuum and then run a couple seconds after i'm done sawing and then turn it off automatically i am liking how this hand tool wall is shaping up i have everything kind of front and center and one of the pegs that i use most often is just this straight i think it's like a four inch peg and you can get this vinyl coating for any of their hooks or pegs so that straight peg is very very useful you can see there i have all of my air tools on this wall and those u-hooks are also probably my second favorite one so get a bunch of u-hooks and a bunch of those straight pegs i mentioned before that i built that far side of the workbench slightly oversized and i did that so i could get this larger workbench that i got here i went from a 42 to a 62 inch workbench and i love this idea that's something i did at my old smaller garage workshop and it really enables you to have a multi-function workspace so you can pull that workbench out use it as a separate table if you need to and then just tuck it away when you don't need it and you can see i still have a lot of work to do here these are the cutouts from my old workbench so i need to make new kaizen cutouts for this one again a lot of work to do i have a 36 inch straight edge which is really nice because that is very delicate and if i drop it off the wall it's going to completely ruin it so it is nice to have a drawer wide enough to accommodate that 36 inch straight edge i can have all of my kind of car mechanic tools in this one drawer now so all in all i'm very very happy with this husky workbench and i will say that it's nice to finally be able to keep all of my random fasteners in one place including my obligatory bowl of random bolts that i can't throw out because i always find one in the very bottom that i need for a certain project so it is cool to have everything in one place and i have to go upstairs or go across the shop have it all centralized thank you all so much for making it all the way to the end of the video and also big thank you to wall control for supplying these panels and husky tools for providing that workbench all right you may or may not know that every week i like to give a little bit of credit to people that make it all the way to the end of the video so this week start your question or comment with your favorite way to say hello in another language at least a language that is not english that way i will know you made it all the way to the end of the video and i promise i will answer all of your questions and comments first as always thank you so much for watching have a great week

Channel: Blacktail Studio

Views: 574,788

Rating: 4.9570184 out of 5

Keywords: workbench, diy workbench, miter station, diy miter station, one wall workspace, makerspace, she shed, extrusion, 8020 workbench, woodworking bench plans, homemade workbench, garage workbench plans, simple workbench plans, woodworking bench, metal pegboard, building a workbench, miter saw station plans, pegboard, steel pegboard, best pegboard, rolling tool box, replaceable top workbench

Id: Hiq6ahntl5E

Length: 12min 49sec (769 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 31 2020