Leveling feet for my workbench

[Bryan Hunt]

I'm in the process of building my own workbench and wanted to include leveling feet to compensate for variations in the garage floor. I found this website:

http://www.levelingmounts.com/

and as you will see, their site is a bit difficult to navigate. I gave them a call, and the lady on the phone couldn't have been more pleasant to work with. I explained to her what I was looking for, and they pretty much had exactly what I needed. Since I was looking for a hex socket on the top of the shaft, I had to move up to the heavy duty levelers which are overkill with a 5,000 lb rating, but it had all of the features I wanted.

If you need leveling feet, I would highly recommend this company.

Here is a pic of the mount I got with a #5 in the background to give you an idea of scale.

39975

Bryan

[Hank Knight]

Brian, how are you planning to attach the levelers to your bench legs? Like you, I decided to use heavy duty levelers on my workbench, but I couldn't figure out how to attach them. Several people told me to imbed threaded connectors in the legs, but I didn't think they would work long term. The cross section area of a connector is something like one square inch. I didn't think tha was enough bearing surface to support my bench and stand up to all the pounding and wracking a workbench has to endure. I went to my local machine shop and had them turn down some 1 3/8" steel plate to make 4 end plates for my bench legs. Each one has a 3" X 3" X 3/8" plate and a 1" threaded stud for the levelers. Each one gives me 9 square inches of bearing surface on the end of each leg. They are bomb proof. Here's a couple of photos:

[glenn bradley]

I went with 3/4 bolts with a nut then a washer before contacting a metal sleeve in the legs. Turn the nut to raise and lower the remaining free sliding portion of the threaded shaft. On the other hand I now know this was overkill and quality lifting feet like you have are more than adequate and a much more elegant solution.

[Bryan Hunt]

Hank, those are some impressive mounting plates. Here are some pics on how I'm doing it:

40032 40033 40034

40035 40036

[Hank Knight]

Brian, those are nice looking mounts and a perfect solution for sled feet. You shouldn't have any issues with them and you'll enjoy the levelers, even if you never move your bench. I't's nice to know that all four feet are soilidly on the ground. Post pics of your bench when you're done.

Cheers.

Hank

[Brian Jarnell]

A wedge usually does the trick for me!

[Marc Prudhomme]

Party pooper
A wedge usually does the trick for me!

[Jim Becker]

Leveling feet can certainly do the job, but I personally prefer a larger area to be in contact with the floor, so I use wedges as Brian mentioned. Unless you do very little work on the bench that will put lateral stresses, the adjustable feet may not give you as much grip on the floor as you want and they will also have to be very heavy duty to avoid the metal bending with stress, too.

Yes, my shop floor is also sloped as it was originally built as a 3.5 bay garage by the previous owner, so I have to deal with this not just with my bench but with some other tools. And that also means that it's very hard to "angle" anything relative to the slope...

[Sean Troy]

Leveling feet can certainly do the job, but I personally prefer a larger area to be in contact with the floor, so I use wedges as Brian mentioned. Unless you do very little work on the bench that will put lateral stresses, the adjustable feet may not give you as much grip on the floor as you want and they will also have to be very heavy duty to avoid the metal bending with stress, too.

Yes, my shop floor is also sloped as it was originally built as a 3.5 bay garage by the previous owner, so I have to deal with this not just with my bench but with some other tools. And that also means that it's very hard to "angle" anything relative to the slope...

Hey Jim, how about using wheels? Do you get enough stability? for those of us with limited room, being able to move a bench out of the way once in a while could be a big help. Sean

[Jim O'Dell]

Do any of you know someone that works for Xerox? If so, ask them what their installers do with the leveling feet from the big machines that they replace or upgrade. If not, make a point to go meet one of them! :cool:
The answer here is that they throw them away. Not allowed to reuse them, even though there is nothing wrong with them. I happen to know a guy through Irish Setter Rescue that works for Zerox here locally, and anytime I need some, I just call and give him a few weeks, and he brings me a small box of them (8 to 10) 81910 The small end is about 1 3/4" diameter. The large end with the textured ring is about 4 1/2" and has 4 holes in it. I used these holes to drill mounting holes into the small ends, and ran my long phillips tip through them to sink the screws. Two adjusting ends, one fine threads, the other coarse threads. The adjusting barrel is about 1" diameter, and the large end will pop out of the barrel, and spins freely. There is a long spanner wrench (14") to allow adjustments. There are also some hard plastic "pucks" that they will fit into, but I saw no need for their use. Possibly keeps water off the metal so it won't rust, but that's just a guess. They will adjust from 2 1/8" up to 4 1/4" and are very stable.
I've got these under my built in bench, and on my two 10' long multistation benches. They work great! Jim.

[Jim Becker]

Hey Jim, how about using wheels? Do you get enough stability? for those of us with limited room, being able to move a bench out of the way once in a while could be a big help. Sean

I don't have the mobility kit wheels on my Adjust-A-Bench...sold them nearly immediately. But the design was such that they didn't touch the floor when being used. I did a similar thing with my previous bench...you had to lift one end in order to get the casters onto the floor. I personally would not have wheels under the bench if said bench was always being supported by the wheels. There is too small a contact area with the floor, IMHO. But again, for anyone not using the bench for heavy hand tool work, this may be less of an issue. In the rare event I need to move my bench for any reason...I just slide it a little at a time.

[Sean Troy]

I don't have the mobility kit wheels on my Adjust-A-Bench...sold them nearly immediately. But the design was such that they didn't touch the floor when being used. I did a similar thing with my previous bench...you had to lift one end in order to get the casters onto the floor. I personally would not have wheels under the bench if said bench was always being supported by the wheels. There is too small a contact area with the floor, IMHO. But again, for anyone not using the bench for heavy hand tool work, this may be less of an issue. In the rare event I need to move my bench for any reason...I just slide it a little at a time.
Thanks Jim, makes good sense

[JayStPeter]

For my outfeed table, I didn't need the heaviest levelers. But, I found some that wind up very heavy duty at the blue borg. In the hardware bins they have elevator bolts. These things basically look like leveler legs and come in 3/8" diameter. They were less than a buck a piece also. The bottom is just metal though, so I bought some grippy rubber self-stick round bits with the furniture feet further down the isle. After all was said and done, I'd use these on a bench in a heartbeat. They are beefy.

[Roy Wall]

Bryan ---

I wanted to bring something to your attention. I noticed something about the mortises when I first saw this post. To make sure, I doubled checked with Mark Singer:

Your mortises are oriented cross grain and thus will have little or no holding power with the long grain tenons. You need to have long grain orientation....so the slots should be rotated exactly 90* to acheive this. Your upright should be large enough to cover the existing mortises - I think you can save it........but you had better get long grain to long grain gluing surfaces.....or else it will not hold.

[Peter Quinn]

I got some heavy duty machine levelers with a 3" base, 5/8" hardened screw posts rated at #5000/foot from McMaster Carr for something like $8/foot. I had a welder attach threaded rod connectors (like very long nuts), about 2 1/2" long to some 3"X3"X3/8" steel plates. The corners of the steel squares are drilled with 1/4" holes to accept 1/4" lags. With a forsner I drilled 3" deep holes on center into the end grain of my bench legs to accept the long bolts. Looks much like Hanks picture earlier in this post.

This bench with these feet could stop a charging rhino. My slab is way to far out for shims or wedges, and now my sliding miter bench/shaper/RAS all sit in one plane and act as infeed/outfeed for each other.

[Greg Hines, MD]

I guess that I must have had the heaviest duty of any of the leveling feet that I see on this thread. I cut hex mortises into the 4x4 legs of my bench, to recess the nut from a 1 1/4" bolt. The nuts were then epoxied into the mortises, and now when I wheel the bench out onto the driveway, I can make it rock solid with a crescent wrench.

Sorry I don't have any photos.

Doc

[john tomljenovic]

I got some heavy duty machine levelers with a 3" base, 5/8" hardened screw posts rated at #5000/foot from McMaster Carr for something like $8/foot. I had a welder attach threaded rod connectors (like very long nuts), about 2 1/2" long to some 3"X3"X3/8" steel plates. The corners of the steel squares are drilled with 1/4" holes to accept 1/4" lags. With a forsner I drilled 3" deep holes on center into the end grain of my bench legs to accept the long bolts. Looks much like Hanks picture earlier in this post.

This bench with these feet could stop a charging rhino. My slab is way to far out for shims or wedges, and now my sliding miter bench/shaper/RAS all sit in one plane and act as infeed/outfeed for each other.


I did the exact same thing with 3" diameter feet.although in my case, welding regular nuts to 1/8" inch plates attached to 4x4 legs with #8 wood was sufficient . Peter, was that the material available? 3/8" plate! 1/4 lags! we need to see this monster bench. or you just decided to go all tool man tayler on us.

[Bill W Jenkins]

Thanks for pointing out that wedges can be the way to go and have some advantages. I had locked into thinking that I needed adjustable feet but I'm only building a 2X4 bench from a kit. The legs and screws are supplied. It seems to me that it will be sturdy but a guy at the local Woodcraft said it would not be as soon as I mentioned my bench project. I live in an apartment and have a small but nice little closed off pantry area to do some scroll saw and hand tool work.

BTW: I just learned of the shooting board tecnique for hand planes and I hope my bench will be solid enough for this kind of thing on a small scale.

[doug faist]

unless your workbecnch is grossly out of level, a wedge under the shortest leg has always worked for me. I am much more concerned that the bench is FLAT and not twisted; level doesn't make a whole lot of difference as long as the bench is solidly on the floor.

Just my $0.02.
Doug

[Larry Gipson]

I also buy leveling pads from this same company in Signal Hill, Calif. Very nice people to buy from, though their web page is confusing.

I've used their 1/2" 13 tpi pads for several projects, including new legs for my Unisaw and the mobile base of a bandsaw.

Home Depot has made them very simple to use as they sell a rod connector with the exact same thread for around $1.50 ea. Each of these rod connectors is 1.75" long, so they can be cut in half and still do a pretty good job of stabilizing a pad. (You will probably have to run a tap through them after the cut, but you know that.) They're galvanized, but I'm used to welding galvanized steel.

For the Unisaw legs, I simply cut a square of sheet steel the right dimensions to fit in the 2" metal tubing, then drilled a 0.5" hole in the middle of the 2x2 sheet. Then I held the threaded rod connector in place with a short bolt while I welded it to the plate on the back side. The assembly was then welded on the end of the tubing. I also used the pads/connector to make a new support plate for the HTC mobile base that supported the new legs better. (4 pads)

I've also welded these to the sides of other mobile bases so that I can raise the equipment off the ground while I use it. I can raise and lower the pads in seconds with my little Makita impact driver. (4 pads)

I've never imbedded these in wooden legs, but it would be easy enough to do. I'd still use the sheet steel plate for strength.

[Matt Day]

little or no holding power.....or else it will not hold.

Could you or someone else elaborate on this a little bit more? I understand the long grain could pull out, but really how much of difference will it make? A glued joint with no holding power seems a little bit of an exaggeration to me, but I'd be curious to hear some more input on this.

[Peter Hawser]

+1 as they say on the wedge. I have the most uneven floor that could be called a floor and used beefy lag screws as leveling feet on an old bench. Wedges/shims work better on the new bench. If you move it a lot, the feet will be an incredible hassle. If you move it never, the wedge is still the best option.

[Jim Andrew]

I built the French style bench from the Schwartz book. It is really heavy, and when I stood it up, had a slight wobble, so I used a shim shingle to level it. Just the thin end was all it took, and the thing hasn't moved since. Really nice to have a heavy bench that doesn't move when you do work on it.

[Tim Janssen]

I just cut one leg shorter and put a leveler on it, same principal as the wedge. I designed and built my own bench lift and posted it on another forum a long time ago: http://www.bt3central.com/showthread.php?t=24318&highlight=benchlift
It also earned me $100. from FWW for their Method of Work section.
All still working fine.

Tim

[Frank Drew]

Could you or someone else elaborate on this a little bit more? I understand the long grain could pull out, but really how much of difference will it make? A glued joint with no holding power seems a little bit of an exaggeration to me, but I'd be curious to hear some more input on this.

Matt,

I'm not Roy, but I believe he meant, correctly, that since the slot mortises in the base piece run across the grain, most of the gluing surface of those mortise and tenon joints will be the end grain of the mortises against the long (or side) grain of the tenons, not the best interface for glue adhesion. That orientation would work for knock down joints since you'd just be locating the parts, but for the strongest, longest-lasting glue joints it should be long grain contacting long grain; end grain just isn't the best surface for glue joints.

Additionally, that piece in between the two mortises might be a bit fragile since the grain is very short.

[John Petsche]

great leg leveler ideas