Workbench/Hobby Table

I like to have some type of vise and a light. Good luck !

Welcome to the forum

One thing I've found that I really like on my desk is a sheet of glass. I found a large sheet of safety glass that had been used as the top of a desk and had a corner broken off of it, then thrown away. I grabbed it out of the dumpster, had it cut down to fit my work area and have used it every since. Gives a very smooth surface to work on, gives me a surface to cut tape on, paint spills don't soak in and the surface cleans up very easily.

Ditto on the glass! I would put a section in just to hold your paints in such a way where they are easily visible and you can tell the color...

Thanks for those ideas. I may decide to fit a piece of glass into the plywood top, fitting it flush with the work surface. Do you think it needs to be saftey glass or would regular window glass that I could get at the hardware store be ok? I can't really picture it getting too much abuse.

The paint bottle set up is something I didn't think of either but may just a simple rail along the back splash to hold bottles in a line would be nice.

Thanks

You can go with regular glass (I did for years) but if you should drop anything heavier than say, an Exacto knife on it, it will shatter. Also you will find the edges of the glass pane to be very sharp - I got around this by wrapping duct tape (the handiman's secret weapon) around all 4 sides.

You could have a slot or square hole towards the back of the desk top that leads to a trash can mounted on the underside. Fit the trashcan on the underside using the basic idea of a drawer; two channels that fit the lip of the trashcan and a stop, no biggie. I've got some more ideas, but they are more elaborate and are hard to describe.

I used to be into building R/C planes and my workbench surface was a solid wood door slab. Big, flat (no warp) and not too expensive if you can get one that has been damaged on one side.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I'm in the building phase now and will post a pic soon . . .

If it will help, here you can visit this page to see some shots of my workshop. My main bench is made from Melamine over 2 X 4, with cabinets I made underneath to hold raw materials, such as Evergreen, brass rod, and so forth. I build pretty large models, so the space comes in handy.

http://wmunderway.8m.com/workshop/workshop.html

Seaphoto....
WOW!!! ...I want your Work Shop!!..
What do you build??!!
OMG!! Is that work shop just for you?.....Alone?.... Your's?!
I was so proud of my work shop!..
"Until I saw yours!" You are my Hero!
"RC"

Well, Hi seaphoto!

I mean, damn.

I was feeling so proud about my little 5 foot workbench that I'm building, and then . . .

I just don't know what to say, except that your workshop is bigger than my apartment.

Good on ya mate.

The rest of us, alas, can dream.

I'm gonna post pics of my bench when it's done anyway damnit!

The total cost of my bench will be only a fraction of that Fein vacuum! LOL

Cheers.

A very handy feature is a magnetic rail for your tools.
I have a magnetic rail on which I atteach most of my tools, it keeps them at hand.
You can find these rails in the kitchen section of ikea and they are quite cheap.



The rail is on the wall on the right.

As you can see, you don't have to have a lot of space to model (it would be nice tough!)

Hi,
Thanks for the kind words - this is my dream shop, after 25 years of building in a corner of a garage. I build 1/96 scale radio control warships - my current project is the USS John Paul Jones (DDG-53), which is about 63 inches long, and the next will be the Gneisenau or the Scharnhorst which will be around 8' long. I also do woodworking, repairs for my business and other things in that shop, so it gets a lot of use. I've had it finished for about 6 months now - after I bought the house, I spent 2 months building cabinets, adding electrical, air, building benches and so forth - almost a hobby by itself. Living out in the country has it's advantages (the house and the shop cost way less than half of my old house in the city) , though it is a 2 1/2 hour round trip to the nearest big hobby shop LOL.

Kurt

Ah, yes, the mag strip! Can't believe that didn't occur to me. I've used one for years working on bicycles and I've got a great place for one. Thanks, RemcoGrob.

Seaphoto: Yeah, moving out of the city saves big $. Recently did that myself. A lot of other benefits too, although I do miss Thai food. As an aside, my father served on the USS McDonough, DDG 39, I think it is. I've thought of surprising him one christmas with a nice model of it. Got any pics of your destroyers? I just happen to live in Bath, Maine where the John Paul Jones was built. Small world, eh?

jdcar2, you can see pics of my DDG here:

http://wmunderway.8m.com/jpj/jpj.htm

I visited Bath once, beautiful area!

Kurt

I'm pretty new to this. Been reading the forums and guides, but I finely have a a dedicated "playroom".

There's a Revell SR-71, Tamiya F2001 R/C and a Cutty Shark on the shelf. Looking to have some fun!
Kurt (another one!)

A couple of small additions to the excellent suggestions above.

1. Buy an adhesive-backed tape measure, preferably marked in inches and milimeters (a good source is www.woodcraft.com ) and stick it to the edge of the bench. When you want to measure something small you don't have to look for a ruler; it's right in front of you.

2. When you make up that glass work surface, paint the bottom of it half white and half black. That will make it easy to see any small part you lay on it.

3. Figure out a way to incorporate a vise into the design, preferably in such a way that the vise can be fastened down to the bench but removed easily if it's in the way. (You can, for instance, screw the vise down to a separate sheet of plywood that fastens to the bench with c-clamps.)

4. You can never have enough electrical outlets. Install an "outlet strip" under the bench, with one or two holes for power cords to pass through to it. Stores like Lowe's sell nice plastic grommets with sliding covers for the holes.

5. When you put the bench together, resist the temptation to use screws that show on the surface. They invite your tools to bang into them, causing edges and points to break and tempers to flare. Use finishing nails, countersink them well below the surface, and fill the holes. Better yet, fasten the top to the support structure with steel L-brackets and screws driven in from below. Still better, put the whole thing together with glue. (Polyurethane adhesive, such as "Gorilla Glue," works great for this sort of thing.

6. Stop by Lowe's or Home Depot and investigate what's available in the way of unfinished MDF cabinets and drawers. You may be surprised at the prices.

Hope this helps a little. Good luck.

seaphoto looks a whole group could build in that shop. but ill just have to stick with mine for now
http://www.finescale.com/fsm/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=52176

I....  I...    I...    I...   I... Wow Seaphoto! That is truly an awesome tiny little workshop you've got there.

While I can't find anything due to the clutter on my 3' diameter round table as a bench, I can't see how you can find anything as you need to walk 1 minute to get across the shop just to start looking.

Now I have a dream!

 

Robert

i build in the house on a tray table but....

when one of the kids  moves out next yr i will have a modeling room

i like to model with the family around me  my garage is attached to the house but i would be too lonely out there

Don't forget lots and lots of outlets.

New table on day 1

 

Any given day after that

 

Here is a pic of mine.

It is 24" deep bye about 6' long. The shelf on top is 10" from the top to the top of the shelf. I need to finish the trim, but its still very usable. I put a drawer underneath to keep things like sandpaper, decals, things like that that never seem to have a good place to go.I have since built a small cabinet to put under it that I keep my can of lacquer thinner, future, and other big bottles in, with a couple shelves for small stuff (spray cans, extra paint bottles, bottle holders) I like it a lot better than my previous desk, which was 2'x4'. I think I worked on this for about 6 or 7 hours, and thats not working hard. The top is just pressed wood sheet. I put the smooth side up. I have a few things left I would like to do, but those probably aren't going to happen until me and the old lady get hitched and I move.

May I make a suggestion?  For a little more than the price of plate glass you can get a surfaced granite plate (about $15 from Enco).  The plate is very dark gray and FLAT which makes alignment easy.  No dropped tool is going to break this baby.  You might have to make your table a bit more sturdy, but if it is a 2x4 design, just add a couple of cross braces.

This winter in my new basement I am going to build a bench made from 2x4s with a solid core door as the top.  At one end I am going to put my granite plate and on the other a spray booth.  In between will be the ususal mess.  (For now I am using an old kitchen table I scrounged.)

Good luck.

nice table wing_nut but a suggestion on storeing your CA (superglue) you should try to store it in the fridge to make it last longer

jtilley wrote:

4. You can never have enough electrical outlets. Install an "outlet strip" under the bench, with one or two holes for power cords to pass through to it. Stores like Lowe's sell nice plastic grommets with sliding covers for the holes.

no kidding, I have 7 plugs in one outlet. I've tripped the circut breaker several times when my compressor, radio and 3 lighs are on so I switched to those compact flourecent bubls and it hardly ever blows.

clairnet_person wrote:

nice table wing_nut but a suggestion on storeing your CA (superglue) you should try to store it in the fridge to make it last longer

 

Thanks.  Those CA's have been up there for 4 or 5 months, the cap on the blue one doesn't even go down all the way and there are as good as the day I bought them.

 

Rob J wrote:

jtilley wrote: 4. You can never have enough electrical outlets. Install an "outlet strip" under the bench, with one or two holes for power cords to pass through to it. Stores like Lowe's sell nice plastic grommets with sliding covers for the holes. no kidding, I have 7 plugs in one outlet. I've tripped the circut breaker several times when my compressor, radio and 3 lighs are on so I switched to those compact flourecent bubls and it hardly ever blows.

 

Jtilley-those are handy but can make it easier to over load a circuit, so the basics of what should be plugged in remains the same.... which brings us to Rob...and yes this is intended to SCARE YOU!!.  If for some reason you stop posting on this forum all of a sudden... I will have to assume it will be because you have burned your house down.  Hopefully it will only be your house.  I am a home inspector when I am not gluing stuff together and  I see melted wires and burned or scorched breakers ALL THE TIME because sometimes they just don't work.  If your panel happens to be a Federal Pacific you chances of that happening go up exponentially. 

And NEVER put in a higher rated breaker to stop what some call nuisance tripping.  That is not a nuisance… it is a warning.  You will burn the wire before enough juice goes through to trip the breaker.

wing_nut wrote:

Jtilley-those are handy but can make it easier to over load a circuit, so the basics of what should be plugged in remains the same.... which brings us to Rob...and yes this is intended to SCARE YOU!!.  If for some reason you stop posting on this forum all of a sudden... I will have to assume it will be because you have burned your house down.  Hopefully it will only be your house.  I am a home inspector when I am not gluing stuff together and  I see melted wires and burned or scorched breakers ALL THE TIME because sometimes they just don't work.  If your panel happens to be a Federal Pacific you chances of that happening go up exponentially.  And NEVER put in a higher rated breaker to stop what some call nuisance tripping.  That is not a nuisance… it is a warning.  You will burn the wire before enough juice goes through to trip the breaker.

I found out while looking at my panel that half the outlets in my room are on one circut and half are on the other, so after a few extersion cords to the other wall I now only have 3 in each. And luckily my breakers is not Federal Pacific.