Minor shop improvement

[John Miliunas]

Fine. Now that all you Neander types have bent BOTH my arms back-wards and I've started to amass quantities of those cordless wonders, I need to properly protect them, right? There was this big, ugly but, still workable "bench" left here from the previous owner. Not even sure how, but he had several drawers kind of hung by sky-hooks from the table top and a shelf on the bottom, mainly for collecting junk. I'm planning my real workbench to build over Christmas break, but decided I don't want cabinets or drawers under it, so I decided to utilize some of the room under Old Nasty. It will be directly behind me as I stand at the new bench, so it should be handy. Construction was completely from leftover "stuff". OSB and ply carcass, Maple face frame, not-wide-enough Cherry for the fronts, bargain-basement pulls, reclaimed drawers and slides. I did spend about $0.80 on some longer machine screws for the pulls. :rolleyes: Below is pictured the "before" and after, as well as a shot of my chisel drawer, where I threw together some lining and dividers. Thanks for taking a peak! :) Oh yeah...BTW: No sanding to anything! All final surfacing by way of one of them cordless "planers" and a scraper thingy! :D :cool:

[Dick Parr]

That sure looks mow better John. :D I really think you are stepping over to the dark side. You need to get back to the scroll saw, that you can sit down and work at. :rolleyes: ;) :D

Again, very nice conversion John

[Steve Clardy]

Much improved John. Ought to be handy.

[Mark Stutz]

John,
Looking forward to PICS of the bench. Just make sure it is heavy enough! Hand planing can walk that bench across the room! DAMHIKT :mad: :eek: I have a nice trestle base I made of Maple, but an planning a cabinet underneath to add mass. Just a consideration.

Mark

[Jim Becker]

Nice transformation, John, and a much better use for the space. But I have to back up Mark's comments...I'm planning a cabinet for under my bench to add mass and take care of hand-tool storage. I don't have any way to have another "permanent" piece of casework in the shop and don't want to put cabinetry under the cantilevered miter station since I use the space under it for additional lumber storage. (Thick stuff)

[Tyler Howell]

Beauty and the Beast.

Right about that, it was ugly.
Love recycling the scraps. Another fine job my friend. Now add some more drawer space. At the rate you're going you'll be launching the the fleet real soon.

[Terry Hatfield]

John,

How come no drawers under the bench????? Sure is handy and holds lots-o stuff!!! AND...I guarantee that this one will not walk across the floor during any kind of neandering.

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Sorry, I couldn't resist. :D :D :p

t

[Alan Turner]

Nice save, John. This is technically called a "Reconstruction". I too have what I call a backbench. It is an old solid core birch ply faced door on a steel stand, wich used to be my regular workbench base before I seriously got into neandering, and I later retro'd it with 5 smaller drawers, and 2 large, 250 lb. slider drawers. Very handy.
Alan

[Mark Singer]

John ,

Really nice work...I guess you will need to do more shopping to fill it up:cool:

[Jim Dunn]

What happened to that stack of Playboys under that old bench?

Just kidding, great looking update to old bench.

[John Miliunas]

What happened to that stack of Playboys under that old bench?

Just kidding, great looking update to old bench.

Jim, you can believe this or not, but those really ARE WW mags! I'm still trying to figure out a good storage/indexing solution for them. Got WAY too many and I can never find exactly what I'm looking for! I've pretty much given up on WW mag subscriptions. I'd rather come to SMC and get better information, quicker and usually with as much or more detail(s). And, it's coming from people I know & trust without all the ads! :D :cool:

[Jim Dunn]

Thats what I tell my wife, :'0