Jeff Dege
02-20-2008, 4:52 PM
Just a reminder of how valuable the accumulated knowledge in these fora can be - and a thank you to all of you who have contributed.
I'm not a woodworker. But a wonder through Google led me here.
I'm planning out a workshop in a corner of the basement, and have been musing over the designs of workbenches and worktables. After reading this site, it's become clear that what I need is more along the lines of an assembly table than a woodworker's workbench. Particularly given my need to have tables that can be relocated.
I started by looking at Norm Abram's assembly table. That got me looking at torsion boxes, and reading about them got me looking at hollow core doors, and I became less and less certain of what I needed the more I learned.
There are a number of people who've posted descriptions of building torsion box benches and tables. But some seemed to me to be massively over-engineered. (I don't know about you, but I see no advantage in a table that can support ten times the weight of the floor it's standing on.)
Which is where I was when my websearching led me here. And here I found a reference to a book, Ken Horner's "MORE Woodworkers' Essential Facts, Formulas & Short-Cuts", which gave me the information I needed.
Not just how to build a torsion box, but how to determine how heavy it will be, how much it will support, how much it will deflect under different loads.
And with that, I can stop guessing. I can determine how much a table made out of 3/4" MDF will support, or a hollow core door, or doubled hollow core doors, or a torsion box built according to David Marks' design, or the simple sorta-torsion box that Norm Abram built on his show. And then I will know whether the simpler, easier, or cheaper designs will meet my needs.
And I can do all of the primarily because the folks on this board have been helping each other, and teaching each other, and accumulating a collection of knowledge that wanderers-in-from-the-net like me can take advantage of.
Thanks.
I'm not a woodworker. But a wonder through Google led me here.
I'm planning out a workshop in a corner of the basement, and have been musing over the designs of workbenches and worktables. After reading this site, it's become clear that what I need is more along the lines of an assembly table than a woodworker's workbench. Particularly given my need to have tables that can be relocated.
I started by looking at Norm Abram's assembly table. That got me looking at torsion boxes, and reading about them got me looking at hollow core doors, and I became less and less certain of what I needed the more I learned.
There are a number of people who've posted descriptions of building torsion box benches and tables. But some seemed to me to be massively over-engineered. (I don't know about you, but I see no advantage in a table that can support ten times the weight of the floor it's standing on.)
Which is where I was when my websearching led me here. And here I found a reference to a book, Ken Horner's "MORE Woodworkers' Essential Facts, Formulas & Short-Cuts", which gave me the information I needed.
Not just how to build a torsion box, but how to determine how heavy it will be, how much it will support, how much it will deflect under different loads.
And with that, I can stop guessing. I can determine how much a table made out of 3/4" MDF will support, or a hollow core door, or doubled hollow core doors, or a torsion box built according to David Marks' design, or the simple sorta-torsion box that Norm Abram built on his show. And then I will know whether the simpler, easier, or cheaper designs will meet my needs.
And I can do all of the primarily because the folks on this board have been helping each other, and teaching each other, and accumulating a collection of knowledge that wanderers-in-from-the-net like me can take advantage of.
Thanks.