What size for an assembly table?

[Brian Hale]

In the planning stage of my assembly/finishing table and I'd like your input. I do mostly case work, think kitchen cabinet size stuff so general assembly and fitting of doors and drawers. I'm 5'6" and thinking 28"-32" high might work well, that way most work will be chest high. 8' long by 30" sound about right? I also have 2 other benches, 36"W x 104" long x 33" high is my hand tool bench and a 24"W x 19' long x 40" high for storage, sharping and general clutter collection.

Brian :)

[Peter Quinn]

Whenever you want to assemble a good rabble I think you need at least 30 people, much less than that and is really more of a mob or a gang........wait.....did you mean table? I should have read the whole thing....

[Robert Chapman]

I sometimes think that a hydraulic lift table would be really handy for assembly work - but never got one. The advantage is variable height the disadvantage is smaller surface area.

[Ole Anderson]

To some degree, shop size and available space can dictate the size. I have a rather small shop, so I have one that is 30" x 66", 18" high. Made entirely of cheap 3/4" Chinese 13 ply birch from the BORG. I used the ply vertically in an "H" shape for legs. I would think another 10" would suit some projects, but be too short for others. Better too short than too tall. Sometimes I pull my low stool up to it to work on small items. And it knocks down when I need the floor space. I first built it when I was building my first major piece, a computer desk with a hutch on top. The hutch was 46" tall, any assembly table over 18" high would have been too tall. I realized I needed a lower table when working on the desk the computer hutch would sit on. Sawhorses wouldn't work for anything taller. The thumbnail is with the hutch of my shop storage unit sitting on the now well-used table. It even saw use in my garage when painting Jeep parts orange.

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[John A langley]

Brian my bench is 23 inches tall. 57 wide and 108 Long sorry the pictures upside down not smart enough to turn it right side up also I am 6 foot 1 The 23 inches works well for me

[ian maybury]

Posted this before - and a football field sized and dead flat assembly table would be great. Not an option in a small shop though.

I use cheap 4x Ikea Bekvam kitchen carts which are in solid wood and very strong: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30240348/ They are only roughly 23 x 20in in size each, but I group the four under a single top from 18mm ply with battens around the edges to stop it slipping if I need a large surface. Two in line makes a great outfeed or infeed table - easy to arrange to clip them to the saw and to each other. One is handy to place tools etc on if working elsewhere in the shop. I shim under the top if flatness and levelling matter. The bench is the fallback if a larger and stronger surface is required...

[Brian Hale]

I'm not limited for floor space, to a point, as the shop is 40'x30' minus a 4'x20' wide stairway. I'm sure if I make it too big it'll be a catchall for every drill, handplane and 11" piece of scrap I generate.

If I look at building say a set of kitchen cabinets, at most I'd need room to 2 cabinets so perhaps 4'x4' would be ok.

I've been planning this in my mind since I started moving into the new shop 1 1/2 years ago and I just can't convince myself what I want. Rrrrrrrr

[Phil Barrett]

I'm in process for this but I've decided to make an outfeed table that doubles as an assembly table. That dictates height and one dimension (somewhat).

[glenn bradley]

+1 on adjustable height. For larger pieces I want around 18" height and up to about 28" or so. Any higher than that and I may as well use my bench or an outfeed surface somewhere. I started with this:

297834

Evolved to this:

297833

And now I'm here:

297835

I bought the adjustable saw horses and cut the adjustable part of the legs so that the tallest position is now what the shortest position used to be. I added crude levelers to the rear legs as my gara . . . er, shop slab has a drop towards the door. The saw horses and the torsion beams store out of the way in about 2 square feet of space behind my jointer when not in use.

I am not as large as you at 20 x 30 but still, giving up 6 to 10 square feet of real estate whether I am using it or not doesn't work for me. Large unused flat surfaces attract clutter unless you are very disciplined. I have already replaced many machine stands with bases full of drawers so an assembly table full of drawers (to earn it's real estate cost) was not necessary. Putting drawers, tablesaw sled storage, clamp storage or whatever may make a dedicated assembly table more valuable to you however. Just an idea.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Long sorry the pictures upside down
Fixed it..

[Don Jarvie]

I made mine as part of my table saw out feed table it's 4x8 and the saw height as my saw in the center of the shop. I added outlets around it and storage underneath.

[Steve Kohn]

Even though my shop is not a large as yours I've found a solution that works for me. I've got several benches around the room. These work well for staging material and tools. My out feed table is 30 inches wide and 60 inches long. This doubles as my main assembly station. However, I've also got two mobile carts that I've built. Each top is a torsion box construction and they are 30 inches tall and 30X48 inches. The carts are designed with brackets on the sides such that I can clamp them together to make either a 48X60 surface or a 30X96 surface. Or I can use them individually.

[John Goodin]

I made mine about a quarter inch shorter than my table saw and use it as an in feed or out feed table too. Works great. With limited space I need as much versatility as possible.

[Yonak Hawkins]

I'm in process for this but I've decided to make an outfeed table that doubles as an assembly table. That dictates height and one dimension (somewhat).

I agree with this. I find that rolling carts, all the same height as my table saw, jointer and other tables and storage surfaces are versatile. Two or three of them pushed together and connected make a fine assembly table, as well as layout, gluing and general work surfaces.

[Ole Anderson]

I am in favor of double duty tables, but I would have thought using your out feed table double as an assembly table would be a bad idea, what if you had a big glue up on the table and you need to rip a piece of stock? But several of you use that approach, so it must work well. As far as a big table accumulating tools: heck, any flat surface in my shop will accumulate stuff until it is time to use that flat surface for what it was intended. Or until I am done with a project and have time to tidy up.

[Kevin Jenness]

I use a 4"x48"x96" torsion box made of a basswood core, 1/4" lauan skins and p-lam surfaces, weighing maybe 60 lbs. It sits on some lightweight boxes 20"x28"x42", so it is easily set up at either 24" or 32" working height or set aside if I need the floor space. It is normally 32" high for flat work and shallow casework. The 24" height works well for assembling and installing hardware in typical base cabinets and similar work.

[Jim Andrew]

I used a Harbor Freight motorcycle lift platform as the base of my assembly table, it is about 3' x8' and I can raise it to full height to make face frames, or put a cabinet together, and then when I want to install the face frame, just pull the rod out that holds it solid, and let the table down to the lower level, put the rod back in. I used the T track extrusions from ebay for the right and closer edge and end, so I can use the t track clamps to hold the face frame down, and 2 layers of 3/4" for the top. Makes and awesome assembly table, although I don't hammer on it like you can a bench. If I were good with pics would post some, but I am not good with pics.

[Thomas Hotchkin]

Brain
Check out this post from some years back. By Duane McGuire this is on my build list.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?123661-Adjustable-height-workbench-assembly-table&highlight=adjustable+Assembly+Table

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