Just finished my workbench today after 4 days of building. It collapses for easy storage in my garage.
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got a picture of it collapsed? I’m curious - great idea. does the top fold seperately?
Nice!
I’ve decided it’s faster and sometimes cheaper to buy a premade solution. You can get folding workbenches or saw horses for $100 or less, and for me it’s worth it for the time saved. But you might not have $100 (I certainly haven’t, at times.)
Just eyeballing the design, I’d wonder if it isn’t a bit wobbly left to right. Any slop in the many hinges (12 of them?) translates into movement. If you added diagonal cable bracing, that might help. (Two cables in an X. Use screw eyes and cable ferrules to attach the steel cable, and turnbuckles to keep it tight. Or use something like screen door braces, which are the same thing but using solid steel rods, cut down to size.)
Years ago I built a workbench by building the top from thin plywood and MDF 1x2s, using a torsion box construction, and then screwing on a pair of folding steel picnic table legs I’d ordered. The thing is reasonably strong, light and handy, but crude. With a torsion box, any mistakes you make are permanent!
Thank you! What’s displayed in the picture was wobbly. I decided since then to replace all the folding cross beams with just 2 thin beams and add a thicker one, plywood, and extended all the cross beams to make it a tighter fit. It doesnt wobble anymore! I also bought a portable vise that I can easily attach and remove and added a few more things as well. If you want updated pictures I can provide them. It’s so fun adding to it there is no end to my imagination so it’ll probably keep changing.
Aha! So it doesn’t fold any more? Or is it more knockdown now?
I’ve found that diagonal braces made of steel cable are pretty handy for folding furniture. The braces add a lot of stiffness, and collapse nicely. In your original design, an X of steel cable, anchored at the tops and bottoms of the side assemblies, would make it stable and wobble-free even with folding cross beams, even with just one of them on each side. You’d need to some way to tighten the cable, like a turnbuckle. The folding cross beams would snap open against some resistance from the cables.
It still folds. That is a feature I cannot sacrifice due to restricted room in the garage. I’ll send some new pictures of it.
