Sturdy Workbench

Whether you build robotics, IoT, automation, or any other kind of hardware project, a sturdy workbench is an essential part of many makers' and builders' equipment. While this project is a little different than most projects you may find on this site, we thought, why not follow the spirit of makers and builders, and put together our own workbench from scratch?

Building a sturdy workbench definitely requires a different set of skills than your usual electronics and software projects; skills which we do not claim to be experts at (like welding). But if you want to roll up your sleeves and test your abilities at something a little different, check out our video below to see how we did it; because if we can do it, so can you.

It's especially important during this project to use the proper safety equipment and follow good safety practices. Welding and cutting metal can create a lot of fumes, particulates, and heat, so make sure to wear the proper breathing masks, gloves, sturdy shoes, and safety goggles, and make sure your work area is well ventilated. It's not a bad idea to keep a fire extinguisher nearby too.

Building the Workbench Top Frame

First, we built the frame of the bench top on which our wooden surface attaches to. We made this out of four pieces of 1" wide x 1/8" thick steel angle, and a 1" wide, 1/16" thick square steel tube crossbar for extra support. We chose steel angle for the bench top rather than square steel tube because we would only need to drill through one side to make holes to screw in the wooden bench top surface.

A 2' x 4' table gives pretty ample surface area for most projects, so we measured out the four pieces of steel angle to build the perimeter of such a workbench:

• 2 pieces of 1" wide x 1/8" thick steel angle, 48" long

• 2 pieces of 1" wide x 1/8" thick steel angle, 22" long

We then used an angle grinder with a metal-cutting wheel to cut these pieces to length. Since we will be welding these pieces together, we also used a sander wheel on our angle grinder to clean off the grease and oxidation off of the welding areas.

Now this is probably one of the most difficult parts for those who are new to welding (like us). Welding is definitely a developed skill; nobody we've known have ever picked up a welder for the first time and was immediately great at it. At the end of the day though, your welds don't need to be pretty, just structurally sound.

To weld the metal pieces of our frame together, we used a Hobart Handler 130 wire feed welder. After reading a lot reviews online, this seems to be one of the best welders you can get for under $400, and it's ready to weld straight out of the box. You can do flux-core welding with this machine, meaning you don't need any additional equipment and gas supplies to shield your weld: the flux-core wire releases the inert gas that shields your weld as the wire is consumed, so it really is ready to weld straight out of the box. If you've never flux-core welded before, check out this article for an introduction.

Because we welded most of our pieces at 90° to each other we found that a strong angle magnet was very helpful in positioning and holding the pieces in place while we welded. (Note: don't weld on a wooden table like we did. We did keep a fire extinguisher on hand if anything happened though.)

To add some additional support to the middle of the workbench, we cut a 22" long piece of 1" square steel tube to weld directly in the middle of the rectangular frame we just made.

The welds created a lot of rough bumps and "slag" (solidified welding flux) at the joints of the frame. The great thing about an angle grinder is that you can put a lot of different attachments on it, so we also used this same tool - this time with a grinding wheel - to smooth out the bumps. Once the bumps were grinded down, we were able to see that the welds successfully fused the pieces of metal together into one piece.

That was it for now for the bench top. Eventually, we will attach our wooden surface to this frame, but we set this aside momentarily while we put the legs together.

Building the Legs

The legs followed a very similar process as the bench top, except this time, we used 1" square steel tube with 1/16" wall thickness instead of steel angle. The legs were first welded together as two "H" shapes: one for the left side of the workbench, and one for the right. For extra rigidity, we also added a long crossbar at the back of the workbench to connect the H's together.

However, we made the lengths of the two H's asymmetrical because we put a set of caster wheels on one side of the workbench, and not the other. This way, we can pick up one side of the workbench and move it around like a wheelbarrow. Once the workbench is positioned, we would then only need to activate the brakes on two wheels rather than four to keep the workbench in place. This was good for us because we move it frequently within our garage, but always only for a short distance. You may prefer to have all four wheels.

So with that plan in mind, we cut the following pieces of 1" wide x 1/16" thick square steel tube:

• 2 short crossbars: 22"

• 1 long crossbar: 44"

• 2 longer legs: ~33"

• 2 shorter legs: ~29"

Because we used a hand-held angle cutter to cut our tubes, the cuts were unsurprisingly imperfect, so we cleaned them up a little bit with a grinding wheel to flatten the ends down too.

We then welded together each "H" with the welder, being sure to place the short crossbars at the same height from where the floor would be once the workbench is assembled. Choose a height for the crossbars where you are unlikely to bang your shin into it. Again, using angle magnets are a great way to achieve a straight angle, and to hold your pieces together while you weld.

Once the two "H" legs were together, we then laid the rectangular frame upside down on the floor, and welded the legs to the inside of the bench top frame.

The frame was now still quite unstable, but the rigidity really improves after adding the long back cross bar. Unfortunately, despite our efforts to line everything up carefully when welding, the imperfect cuts, warping from the heat of welding, and imperfect lengths of the tubes made the frame slightly crooked. The good news is that you always have a little bit of room for adjustment as you go along since you can force the bars into place by welding other pieces of metal to connect them. But it's always good to measure and cut as precisely as possible, and to check for alignment constantly as you go along.

In the pictures below, you can see that we used a bungie cord to get the legs to stand up a little straighter. Then once we welded the long crossbar on, the frame was pretty much perfectly straight.

Now this mess of steel tubes is actually starting to look like a workbench. But before we can add the bench top on, there are just a few things left to do.

Drill Bench Top Holes

Our bench top surface is going to be made of oak plywood that is about 3/4" thick, which will be screwed into the steel frame with #10 screws from underneath for an unobtrusive attachment. But first, we had to drill holes straight into the 1/8" steel angle for the screws to go through. This was actually surprisingly easy to do with a hand drill using a stepped drill bit that gradually widened the diameter of the hole in discrete steps as you drilled. With this tool, we drilled a 1/4" hole in each corner of the frame, as well as a hole on either side of the cross bar for a total of six holes.

Paint

Before assembling the final pieces onto the frame, we first had to make it look nice. Straight from the store, the steel bars were dirty, greasy, and ugly. So we took some soap and water and scrubbed the whole thing down thoroughly with a rag to prepare it for paint and primer.

Then, we gave it a couple coats of Rust-Oleum self etching primer and let it dry before applying a few coats of black, VHT roll bar & chassis spray paint.

Assembling 3D-Printed Caster Wheel Adapters

While we let the paint dry, we moved onto putting together the wheels of the workbench.

To avoid having to craft some sort of attachment/adapter out of metal to attach casters (wheels) to the ends of the workbench legs, we decided to just 3D print some instead. Of course, being plastic, we had to make sure they were extra stocky to bear the load of the workbench, but we found they were more than strong enough to do the job. The 3D files are attached to this project if you want to try them out for yourself.

The casters come with a mounting plate with four slots in it to attach to whatever you intend to attach it to. So we created a 3D-printed part with four matching holes and a square recess in which the square tubes can slide into. The 3D-printed part was then bolted onto the caster plate using 5/16" bolts and accommodating washers and locking nuts.

Once the caster/adapter assembly was together, the whole thing simply slipped onto the ends of the legs. If desired, glue can be used to make the attachment extra secure.

As for the other side of the workbench without the wheels, we 3D-printed some small stubs, whose height can be adjusted as necessary to fine-tune the levelness of the workbench.

Adding the Finishing Touches

The last two things that we had to do before securing the bench top on were to add a little bit of color to our dull looking plywood, and also add a power strip to the side of the workbench.

To bring out the color in our oak bench top, we got a can of Danish oil, which you simply have to rub into the wood using a rag. Just like paint, the wood requires a couple coats with a drying period in between. The oil penetrates the wood and also adds a layer of protection, but it also made the wood a lot more aesthetically pleasing.

The power strip is a very simple, yet very useful feature to have on a workbench. Before we had this, we always struggled with a jumbled mess of cables and plugs that were always too short or awkwardly strung to the wall outlet. But having a power strip zip-tied right on the side of the workbench to power tools, electronics, soldering irons, power supplies, chargers, etc. made working on projects much more convenient. This was probably the best and cheapest addition to the workbench.

Screw on the Top Surface

At last, the plywood was ready to be screwed on to complete the workbench. Using the six holes previously drilled into the frame, we screwed six screws into the plywood from underneath the frame. The great thing about this setup is that if the wood gets beat up over time with all the projects being built on it, it's very quick and easy to install a fresh piece of plywood simply by removing and reinstalling the six screws.

Now the workbench is done! Although this thing can't connect to the internet or respond to voice commands, it is definitely a project we are proud to have made from scratch, and will definitely be used to create almost all our other projects on. So now, there is only one thing left to do....

Destroy Your Old Table

Take your anger out on your old table that caused you a lot of problems and should have been thrown out a long, loooooong time ago. Or you know, donate it.

Thanks for taking the time to read this project!

Cheers,

Davis @ Hacker Shack