# Making a new worktable.



## MrCrankyface (May 31, 2021)

A bit of a sidetrack from my workshop thread (Workshop).
Work surfaces has been an ongoing struggle in my garage, the first table was too weak, the second too large and space inefficient.
So this is my third try...

I found these two cast iron plates on the Swedish equivalent of craigslist and decided they'd be a good start for it.
They're both 400x800 millimeter in width and length but one is 140mm thick and the other is closer to 105.
Neither is completely solid, underneath they have a hollow part, the thicker with some webbing like most cast iron surface plates have.
I calculated that the thick one weighs in at around 222kg so it's a difficult piece work with. 



Since both plates have been beaten up quite severely I wanted to try and deck them in my mill.
My mill has a movement of around 230Y and 630X on a good day so I'm going to need do this in several setups.
But first to even get it up on the mill I had to experiment with the engine hoist.. The thicker one already had some bolt holes in the side I could wrap the sling around.



The sheet itself is bigger than the saddle casting.. 
Just the weight is causing quite a lot of issues for my non-perfect CNC conversion.
The Z motor keeps stalling from the combination of a sticky Z axis and the added weight and the Y axis gets serious problems moving when all the weight is cantilevered out to the left.
This makes it difficult to do fine adjustments or efficient movement patterns since I have to manually(with a plier) help the Z stepper motor to set my depth and can only (reliably) move Y when the weight is somewhat centered on the saddle.
At least it's giving me a lot of notes on what to improve upon.



The milled surface is pretty much the full movement of the previous setup, I've now moved it as far left as possible so I can reach the other side of the plate.
It's so far to the side that I can't use any T-slots and have to resort to carefully clamping around the entire table, with a wooden piece inbetween to not damage the ways.
So far I've only been using a 40mm corncob style endmill.



This is what the surface finish is like with the endmill.
Tramming was a tiny bit out in the X rotation axis whilst side to side tram was great.
You could just about feel an edge between the old and new cut, it's probably slightly below 0.1mm.
Cutting it this way took a lot of time since I didn't have the guts to speed up the mill very fast from fear of unneccessarily dulling it.



For those of you that are into 'memes', this really made me think of "you versus the guy she told you not to worry about". 
Kinda hidden in the background, I've drilled and tapped 5 holes in the center pocket, this will aid both lifting the plate and fixturing parts on it later.



Many hours later, thick plate has been decked. I did a couple of mistakes and I think the entire plate is probably only within 0.2-0.3mm but was so tired of it that I decided it was good enough for now.
I still need to remove a bunch from the bottom to make it equal thickness to the other one, which might cause the plate to shift a bit so will most likely redeck it again.



Had I been smart I would've started with the small plate but I learnt a ton on the big one so maybe it was good after all.
Swapping out the large plate to the small plate, I first flattened the bottom and then started flycutting top.
I was super picky here and removed maybe 0.2mm at a time, each time adjusting my tramming a miniscule amount until I got the cuts to blend perfectly into eachother, EXTREMELY time consuming.
Of course I crashed the mill, ruining my tramming, maybe an hour after it was perfect.
At least the flycutter is giving a better finish, takes around the same time as the endmill since my feed is much slower but the width is much larger.
You can see the head and tool in the reflection of the plate, something that definitely wasn't possible on the other plate.
I found that I have to go up quite a bit in surface speed, above 120m/min to get a good surface, but this is also very close to making sparks so I save it for the fininshing cut and spin slower for roughing to not dull the tool.



It's interesting with heavy things like this because even just flipping them over is a difficult task.
I drilled and tapped for M12 bolts in the sides of both plates and made an improv lift bar.
It's too short for turning it midair(chains get caught) but at least it made it a ton easier to lift it slightly from the floor and carefully start leaning it over.
This is definitely one of those jobs where "slow and steady wins the race".
Rather make a tool that makes the job easier, than try to do it fast and dangeorus(ie manhandling it over which I tried on the smaller one).



Finally on the mill with the bottom up, I gave my 25mm insert endmill a try for roughing.
I need to remove nearly 4cm of cast iron, each edge being 5cm wide and I definitely didn't feel like wearing down my regular endmills for this when inserts for this insert endmill are dirt cheap on ebay.
To my suprise it also loves high feeds and speeds.
From ~200rpm and 150mm/min with the 40mm endmill @1mm doc I could go up to 1088rpm and 500mm/min @ 2mm doc, just seeing the spray of cast iron chips was pretty fun and it left a superior surface as well. 
Even at these speeds it takes quite a while and the stepper motors still stall out from time to time, leading me to have to reset the control software etc.
I'm going to scrape the machine in, change to ballscrews, gear the steppers even stronger and build in a better oiling system in the future so hopefully this won't be a problem after that.
But for now it's a half-manual process where I set the Z by hand and then let it run a short program that mills the shown surface before I move the plate on the table.
Hopefully I can finish these plates up soon and move on to the actual table build!


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## Dhal22 (May 31, 2021)

Nice work.


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## MrCrankyface (Jun 1, 2021)

Thanks!

Spent nearly 4 hours yesterday finishing that cut and a second setup.
I decided to calculate how much material I was removing, since it felt like it was taking forever.
Apparently I've converted around 13kg of material into chips .... 
13 more to go.



On this setup I can fixture it better and it's more centered on the knee so no more stalling issues.
I've really tried to optimize my speed and feeds but I think I'm very close to my fastet reliable settings.
Around 1088rpm, 500mm/min, 2mm doc and a 96% stepover.
I have enough horsepower for 3mm(I tried) but the cutting pressure becomes so high that it starts pulling the sheet out of the clamps no matter how tight they are so 2mm felt like a safer bet.
Here's a short clip of a run, at the end of the program it first lowers the piece a bit to get the sticky Z moving, then raises it back up to -2mm Z for the next cut.
For jobs like this I really love having the CNC features, despite the large backlash in old worn screws, especially since I have to run this same program around 16 times to get down to depth.


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## vtcnc (Jun 1, 2021)

Serious endeavor! Craigslist finds will push us out of our comfort zone into a creative world! Well done. Looking forward to seeing the final table!


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## MrCrankyface (Jun 1, 2021)

Thanks! And yes, sites like that has gotten me into most of my adventures...  

Been too tired to do milling today so instead I've been drawing up a frame design.
My initial idea was going with an all steel frame but my budget just won't allow it and I don't have that kind of amount of scrap laying around.
Instead I designed a frame that should be quite beefy around C24 timber.
Buying all these studs and a sheet of plywood is going to be around 20% of the cost of the steel version, biggest drawback is it's bulkier so less storage in it and probably takes longer to make.



With all the plywood pieces removed, it's a bit easier to see the actual frame.
The left open area will have full extension drawers at around 70cm wide and the right side will most likely just have a door for storing tall items(dial test indicator stand etc).


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## vtcnc (Jun 2, 2021)

MrCrankyface said:


> Thanks! And yes, sites like that has gotten me into most of my adventures...
> 
> Been too tired to do milling today so instead I've been drawing up a frame design.
> My initial idea was going with an all steel frame but my budget just won't allow it and I don't have that kind of amount of scrap laying around.
> ...


The word "stout" comes to mind when reviewing your sketches. I like it. Have you considered making this mobile?


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## MrCrankyface (Jun 2, 2021)

The original idea for this worktable was to have it on wheels, then I moved to the idea of having it on legs but lowerable wheels if I wanted to move it.
Having it always on wheels doesn't give me the rigidity I want and having lowerable wheels for such a heavy table adds a bit more complexity than I want.
I'm currently considering having it "as is" on maybe 4-6 hockeypuck feet and then using my engine hoist(lifts up to 2t) to move the table around if there's a need.
Most likely the workbench will just sit in one position 98% of the time, but for those weird jobs I might need the space where it sits or need the bench elsewhere.


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## Janderso (Jun 2, 2021)

That is one heavy duty bench!


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## MrCrankyface (Jun 2, 2021)

I hope so!  

I had this brilliant idea last night to not mill the cast iron down but rather part it.
So on I went with a saw once I got home from work today.
It would've been a pretty quick process if it wasn't because the mill kept stalling out(the stepper motors losing position, requiring a reset).
I really hope this will be solved with scraped ways, ballscrews and 3:1 gearing instead of 2:1.





And now I have 2 chunks of cast iron!
My only regret is not doing this to the entire thing, the smaller chunk could be real handy for future projects.
Now I just need to take a tiny cut on the large sheet to make sure it's perfectly flat.


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## mattthemuppet2 (Jun 2, 2021)

nice! That's a very useable chunk of CI.

For the bench, looks plenty stout enough. Only suggestions I would make is to have the 2 large'n'heavy plates over the center support instead of over the unsupported span and to put some diagonal braces between the back uprights. You have a relatively tall and heavy top sitting on 6 relatively narrow (with regards to left/ right looking at the front) pads, so other than a plywood back you don't have much resisting side to side loads.


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## MrCrankyface (Jun 11, 2021)

Thanks, good input!
I will be reinforcing the plywood further with diagonal studs, this should help a lot with sideways strength, will probably do something similar to the "side plywood".
I'll also install the CI plates over the small opening rather than the large, then have the lighter granite over the larger span.

In other news, chaos in the workshop.
I was going to drill 2 threaded holes to be able to attach my vice onto one of the CI plates.
While doing this I thought it would be a good idea to have more holes on this plate, spread out with a 120mm(same measurement as the vice).
5 holes in and the belt between my Z stepper motor and Z-axis screw snapped so the machine is now stuck 60mm deep into the plate. 



My temporary solution was to remove the motors and various other stuff in the way and then make up and extension to the Z-screw.
Now I can use my powerdrill or ratchet to raise and lower the machine at least, the CNC control can still do X and Y movements.
Will fix this permanently in a few weeks so didn't want to spend money on a new belt.



It's been way too hot so work has been slow but all the wooden parts has been planed flat and cut to length.




I'm a bit limited in clamps so could only do a few setups at a time.
This is the upper front and back piece, the other one is standing up in the top right corner.





Despite being as careful as possible when cutting everything, when gluing the entire top together I noticed it wasn't perfectly square.
I managed to get it back into square with a diagonal strap going across the top, once the glue has set it should be fun.
One of the CI plates and my granite plate(in the wooden box) is to the right.



I realized I hadn't really thought out how to insert the middle reinforcements, I didn't want to use the tiny dowels I had so will have to think of another solution.


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## addertooth (Jun 11, 2021)

That is extremely stout.  You must believe in the mantra "anything worth building is worth Over-Building".
From what I have seen, a lot of us here labor under the same ethos.


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## mattthemuppet2 (Jun 11, 2021)

very nice! Easy to build it stout now than to try to add stoutness later  It was a pain in the bum adding an extra layer under 2 of my 3 bench tops after I had already been using it for a year or two, though I'm glad I did.


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## MrCrankyface (Jun 15, 2021)

Rather built it right once than fix it 5 times. 
Then again, this is the third table I build so not sure how well I'm following my own rules.

Decided to use my router to inset the middle beams.
Since I had already cut all pieces to length, they were now too short and had to cut new ones.
Should end up being a stronger design and have more resistance to twist.
Also ended up modifying my router with a wider plate at the bottom, much easier to keep it stable when cutting.



Top frame screwed and glued, should now be plenty strong and have support locations for the big CI plates.
I need to make the special see-saw solution for the granite plate so I don't induce twist into it if it's not sitting perfectly flat.
I ended up making double inner beams in both places, minimal extra work and adds more strength.



The next step is the legs/standing frames.
Kinda stuck thinking about drawer slides at the moment.
Previously I've made them myself from hardwood but I don't really like the feel that gives.
Considering investing in "real" slides but the price difference between these two solutions are quite big, further compounded by the fact that I want a lot of small drawers rather than a few big.
Might have to do a few experiments with different materials to see if I can get a better feel, I do have some very slippery plastic at home that might work better than wood against wood.


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## mattthemuppet2 (Jun 15, 2021)

that's looking very stout!

For drawer slides I'm not sure what you have available in Sweden, but for my bench I used a pack of 10 full extension 100lb slides from Amazon. They're astonishingly robust - I have easily 200lb of steel in one of the drawers - and slide very smoothly even when heavily loaded. Takes a bit of fiddling to get them straight and parallel, but part of that was my lack of woodworking chops and wonky recycled wood.


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## vtcnc (Jun 15, 2021)

mattthemuppet2 said:


> that's looking very stout!
> 
> For drawer slides I'm not sure what you have available in Sweden, but for my bench I used a pack of 10 full extension 100lb slides from Amazon. They're astonishingly robust - I have easily 200lb of steel in one of the drawers - and slide very smoothly even when heavily loaded. Takes a bit of fiddling to get them straight and parallel, but part of that was my lack of woodworking chops and wonky recycled wood.



Link?


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## mattthemuppet2 (Jun 15, 2021)

here you go





						10 Pack Promark 3-Section 100 LB Capacity Full Extension Ball Bearing Side Mount Drawer Slides (22 Inches) - Cabinet And Furniture Drawer Slides - Amazon.com
					

10 Pack Promark 3-Section 100 LB Capacity Full Extension Ball Bearing Side Mount Drawer Slides (22 Inches) - Cabinet And Furniture Drawer Slides - Amazon.com



					www.amazon.com
				




there are probably other options, but these worked well for me


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## vtcnc (Jun 15, 2021)

Pricing isn’t all that bad for that kind of capacity. Thanks


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## MrCrankyface (Jun 16, 2021)

I checked the Swedish version of Amazon and actually found something similar, much cheaper than the other places I've checked.
So now i have 10 pairs ordered, should arrive on friday. 
Much better than having to manually fabricate that amount of slides.

Sometimes I really appreciate woodworking, it's quite fast when you get into it.
Started working on the bottom frame yesterday evening, this was roughly 2 hours of work, just dry fitted for now.
Will add some screws here and there and drill holes for dowels so everything registers correctly when I glue it up.


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## MikeInOr (Jun 16, 2021)

The best thing I ever did for my shop was put my heavy machines and tables up on blocks so I could get under them with a pallet jack and move them easily.  It is MUCH easier than retractable wheels and makes moving big pieces quite easy.

Here is an aquarium stand I built a little while ago... your pictures were kind of *Déjà vu







I am looking forwards to seeing your finished table!*


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## MrCrankyface (Jun 20, 2021)

Quite the deja vu on that design!  

So, this is probably the sketchiest way I've EVER run any kind of machine.
X and Y via g-code and Z via my powerdrill(Had to use both hands when raising due to the torque)



But now both plates are finished.
This is the outermost plate and has threaded holes in the middle and along the outer edge for vices, fixtures, whatever I want to attach temporarily.


	

		
			
		

		
	
.

I've also made some progress on the frame.
Nothing is glued yet because I've done the mistake before, gluing too early.
I'm fixing everything together with screws and reinforcing with dowels which should also help locate it when I start gluing it together.
I find it really difficult to get both lap joints perfect and also the overall height, so I left everything a bit long and then used the laser to cut it level.




With it leveled off, I just laid the top on to get a feel for how square everything was, and it's not far off to be honest.
Good enough considering that I haven't been very careful building this.
The top is just sitting on top right now so I made up some special dowel markers so I can use 15mm dowel rods between the standing studs and the top.
Will further reinforce everything once I have all of this glued and also the plywood sides/back/bottoms in place.
The left one is sitting in a 15.25mm hole just to be clear.


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## MrCrankyface (Jun 22, 2021)

As usual I found a reason to play with my machines.
Squared this block of plastic up, I think it's acrylic.
Milled some slots and drilled through with the dowel drill.
Easy to use drill guide for the dowels, made drilling the "legs" super easy.




Table is slowly coming together, aligning all the legs for marking, drilling etc takes some time.
They all have some slop to them so I'm trying to align it as I lower the chonky table frame down ontop of the legs, gets a bit tricky.


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## mattthemuppet2 (Jun 23, 2021)

very neat, that'll be a great addition to the shop when you're done!


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## MrCrankyface (Jul 2, 2021)

Thanks! Yeah, it's a key piece in how I want to re-arrange my shop.

Slowly making progress on this, many other things going on so I'm only spending an hour here and there.
Wasn't quite satisfied with the inlayed plywood panel, I could've gotten the fit tighter but it should still provide large amounts of stiffness.



Either way I took everything apart, applied tons of glue and slapped it back together.
The weight is really starting to add up and it feels plenty stiff.
Bottom is to the lower left corner of the picture on the right, the front is pointing towards the roof.




With the frame pretty much done, I turned to thinking about leveling feet.
I bought a whole bunch of hockey pucks a while back and figured I'd put them to good use.
Spun them in the lathe to do some cutting on both sides.
On the underside to make sure it's sitting on a larger footprint and not just "on the middle".
The topside I made a small cutout for the steel washer, just to easily have it centered.
It was quite difficult trying to grip something so soft in a 3 jaw chuck with bad reach, threw one out of the chuck at 1600rpm, luckily they're ... soft ....


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## hman (Jul 2, 2021)

Maybe wear a goalie's face mask when you're machining the pucks? 

Anyway, that's turning out to be an INCREDIBLY stout work table.  Maybe even strong enough to set a car on top!


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## MrCrankyface (Jul 4, 2021)

If nothing else, it'd look hilarious.  

Managed to finish the feet today.
6 steel pads with a nut welded on, each nut is basically just sitting with 2-3 large tacks since 99.3% of the force will just be pushing it up towards the steel plate.



The frame has been drilled to the same diameter as the rods behind the nuts, this ended up giving the rods an incredible amount of stability at the only cost of making them slightly resistant to turning(you can just barely rotate them by hand due to the friction against the wood).
The rods has one nut welded on to provide a larger surface area against the steel on the pucks.
Only downside of this setup so far is that there's nothing keeping the pucks on the rods, couldn't come up with an easy solution for this so I'll just live with it.



And one finished foot.
Wrench goes on the nut closest to the puck, this rotates the threaded rod which can then be locked by screwing the "middle" nut towards the steel plate.
Hopefully I can flip the whole thing over tomorrow and start planning drawers!


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## mattthemuppet2 (Jul 4, 2021)

wow!


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## Just for fun (Jul 4, 2021)

Looks good !!


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## MrCrankyface (Jul 7, 2021)

Thanks!
Got some more machining done today.
I want the calibrated granite to sit on 2 solid mounts and a seesaw on the other side, I've heard/read that this is a good idea to reduce the risk of twisting the plate, considering the wooden frame might not be perfectly flat or "dead".

Remembered I had this big hunk of steel from my last scrapyard hunt and started removing everything that didn't look like the rectangle I had in mind. 
So. Much. Angry. Chips.




Just a quick PSA, don't use cheap taps.
Whilst annoying, I could just turn the piece over and drill/tap from the other side.
I did spend a while trying to get this tap out but it was in there pretty good, considering how misaligned the hole is, it wasn't a big loss.
Used a high quality tap on the other side and it was like cutting butter...



The seesaw then sits like this in the bench, supported on 2 bearings(old and used but still feel fine) and a 25mm shaft.
The seesaw has a small grub screw underneath that locks it to the shaft to make sure the bearings do the work, I do however doubt it would ever slip and will just sit stationary 99.9% of the time either way.
3D printed washers making sure the bearings can't walk off the shaft and also 3D printed some feet to support the plate.
Will add some felt or rubber between the plastic and the granite at a later time.




Since I can't leave 'good enough' alone I decided to cut some corners, literally.
One side went great, when I cut the other side I quickly got reminded of that broken tap ... Luckily the endmill was already pretty worn so it wasn't a big loss when it obliterated itself. 
Swapped over to a 12mm carbide insert endmill instead, the import inserts are cheap enough that I don't mind trashing a few if it comes to that.
Once I had gotten enough of the tap out I could go back to a HSS endmill and clean up the surface before smoothing all the edges over with a flap disc.
I'm pretty pleased now! and should be able to install the granite once I have the other 2 feet.


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## hman (Jul 9, 2021)

MrCrankyface said:


> Hopefully I can flip the whole thing over tomorrow and start planning drawers!


Looks like you got it flipped over.  Good to see!


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## MrCrankyface (Jul 9, 2021)

That reminds me that I forgot to mention that it's now sitting the right side up, before the last post. 
I'm not sure what it weighs, probably around 50kg/110lbs.
Definitely can't lift it but somewhat manageable to flip it over side to side.
The hockey puck feet are actually amazing, so pleased with it.
The entire frame sits insanely sturdy and it's impossible to slide/push it once it's sitting flat.
The fact that the hockey pucks don't stick to the threaded rods is a bit of a nuisance as they're constantly falling off if you lift it and it can be difficult to get them back in place.
Might incorporate a magnet or something just to make sure they stay on if I ever move the table, whilst it's manageable now to reattach them, it won't be with 400kg of CI and granite plates on it.


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## mattthemuppet2 (Jul 9, 2021)

you know those worries I had about sturdiness earlier on? Definitely don't have them anymore


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## MrCrankyface (Jul 14, 2021)

Me neither! I was worried about it possibly being sensitive to tipping with a high center of gravity but that also no longer feels like a problem.
Currently trying to come to a conclusion about what kind of drawers I want ...
Construction will most likely be thick plywood sides/front/back with a thinner plywood bottom.
The real issue is how tall to make them.

I have bad experience with tall drawers as it's hard to get an overview, but having too slim drawers will severely limit what I can put in them. 
What I'm currently considering is taping up squares on the floor or something, of the size the drawers will be in depth/width and then laying all of the tools out.
This should help me understand what kind of height is needed and what the most efficient layout would be.


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## hman (Jul 14, 2021)

Your idea for laying out drawer space is FANTASTIC!!!!


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## mattthemuppet2 (Jul 14, 2021)

how you make the drawers all depends on what you want to put in them 

For my bench, I wanted a couple of shallow drawers under the lathe for tooling and measuring gear, those are maybe 100mm/ 4" deep. Couple of general use draws in the middle and right stacks at the same height, probably 8" deep. Something really handy with those is having half height fronts, so I can just reach in and grab commonly used tools. The bottom ones are deep (think 5 gallon bucket deep), one for my anodising set up, one for steel stock and the other for pretty much anything. The middle ones are somewhere inbetween - 1 for my hand power tools, 1 for my bench grinder and other stuff and another one for my alu stock. The shallow ones have 3/8 to 1/2" plywood bottoms, the deeper ones have 3/4-1" bottoms.

Your needs are going to be different, so you'll need to figure out what goes in them to make them to fit


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## MrCrankyface (Jul 18, 2021)

Still struggling to deal with the tedious task of figuring out the drawers, I turned my attention to the table tops instead.
Just getting them up on the frame was a project all on it's own. 



I started looking at what scrap I had laying around and realized I've now had this huge thick walled tube for at last 3 years and never had a use for it so figured I'd cut that up.
It took me several setups and maaaany hours of milling to get this cut up but it was a great learning experience!
Tried both slitting saws and some carbide cutters on this.
Whilst the slitting saws were obviously slower to work with, it was a lot less wasteful, produced less noise and didn't throw hot chips everywhere.



Eventually I had these pieces cut up and could continue actually working...
I only need two of these but I always have a use for flat stock so the remaining two will be more useful than the tube ever was.



And that brings us here!
It was a complete pain hand drilling and tapping all those holes but it sure came out nice!
I need to find some real big counter sunk wood screws so I can fill all those lower holes up then it should be real firm and sturdy!
There's a similar plate on the rear of the table, also holding the CI plates together and holding them down to the frame.
This should eliminate any risk of things moving if I'm excerpting a lot of force on the table or lifting it with the engine hoist.


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## jwmelvin (Jul 18, 2021)

Looks like a good approach. It’s turning out very nice.


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## MrCrankyface (Jul 29, 2021)

Thanks!

I've been using it for a bit now and absolutely love it so far.
Broke my vice in half so I had plenty of use for all the threaded holes in the plates when I was bending up this flat bar.
No real issue with heat transfering down towards the wood despite heating the flatbar several times.



Started looking at drawer construction and ended up with this.
18mm plywood sides and 4mm plywood bottom.
Fairly low grade plywood to keep costs down but with such small strips it's plenty straight and strong enough.
I used the tablesaw to cut slots into each of the 18mm pieces for the bottom to sit securely in, this will all be glued once I know it all works.



Screwed the testbox together and fitted the slides, real satisfied so far!
The opening in the bench itself isn't perfectly square so I've chosen to make the drawers a tiny bit smaller and then shim the slides out with washers to the perfect width, works pretty well.
It seems to be able to carry a lot of weight despite not being glued yet.



So now I just have to do the tedious task of repeating it 7 times...


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## hman (Jul 29, 2021)

Drawer looks nice.  Sorry to hear about your vise.  

How expensive is plywood nowadays (compared to a year or two ago)?  It's absolutely skyrocketed here in the US.


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## MrCrankyface (Jul 29, 2021)

The price for "nice" plywood has gone through the roof here as well.
A regular sheet of birch plywood(18mm x 2440 x 1220) is almost 2000 sek or 230 USD.
These sheets of considerably less quality(warped, holes/gaps between the layers and rough surfaces) were around 500 sek / 59 USD per sheet, same size.
Pretty much all wood supplies are hard to get as well, goes for both sheet goods and regular timber/studs.
Took us weeks when we expanded our backyard decking simply because we couldn't buy the material we needed. 
Pretty weird situation overall.

The vice was a freebie so I'm not too down about it, will try to heat it and weld it, will be a nice experiment.
Was looking at buying a new vice but anything good is a lot of money ... Might do like that fireball tools guy did and build my own if the weld repair doesn't work out.


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## hman (Jul 29, 2021)

That's distressing to hear.  Let's all hope for a speedy return to (somewhat) normal conditions.


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## Larry$ (Jul 29, 2021)

We have allot of stuff blocked so a pallet jack will fit. They are available in several sizes. Very handy.


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## MrCrankyface (Aug 21, 2021)

Yeah I'd love one of those short pallet jacks, would be quite convinent for stuff like this.
But in such a small space they take up some valuable floor space so we'll see if I ever get one.

Took so much mental effort to get back on this project, really dreaded installing all the drawers, repetetive jobs are not my forté...
To make fitment easier I figured I'd use a template relying on the topmost, already fitted drawer.
What I should've realized before I even started is that this multiplies any error your previous screws have, and when you do this 8 times things get real weird..



So my second try, after drilling 112 holes in the wrong location, was to properly fit the bottom drawer and then use some parallels for a perfect level and distance for the next slide.



Worked much better!
All drawers installed and slides nicely!
I ended up printing spacers intead of using washers to space out the slides from the boxes, felt like a waste to empty my entire box of washers. 
Next step is that I want to paint this entire bench, just to make sure the wood doesn't soak up any liquid/dust etc like it currently does..


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## mattthemuppet2 (Aug 21, 2021)

looks fantasitic, that'll help a great deal in keeping the workshop organised. Polyeurothane also works well to seal the wood.


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## Larry$ (Aug 23, 2021)

A pallet jack doesn't take up much space if you just leave it parked under whatever you just moved out of the way. 
Mounting drawer guides. Figure the length of support you need to rest the guide on for the top drawer. Cut two pieces of junk wood to that length. Rest the guide on them and screw in place. We use Makita impact drivers for all screws. A drill is a poor second choice. Put a screw in the horizontal slots at each end of the guide. After all the drawers are mounted you can come back and adjust the in/out position slightly on the slotted holes then put a couple of locking screws in. 
Repeat for each drawer going down by cutting off the sticks to the calculated length. No compounding of errors. Just two sticks cut to the correct length. You can locate the screws quite accurately if you scribe vertical lines for them. 
Make yourself a jig stick for locating the drawer member. Way faster and more accurate than measuring each one.


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## MrCrankyface (Sep 1, 2021)

Alright so not a lot is happening lately, started studying at university so time will be even more limited I suspect.  
Still haven't decided on what fronts I want but I have started filling the boxes up, slowly.

Each drawer has around 65mm of height so I'm trying to use that as much as possible when designing holders for tools.
The reason I want to design a holder for every little thing is to make sure there is only 1 correct location to put it back, helps my messy brain to keep things clean.

Top drawer is measuring and lathe stuff so far, nothing is really fixed for now.




Second drawer is more milling related.
Just getting all my ER32 collets in order was a pretty big relief, they've been lying in a bag for quite a while now.




Bottom row has all my slitting saws, pretty nice finally having them in order, not in a pile behind 5 other piles.


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## Brento (Sep 1, 2021)

I must say that i love your design for the slitting saw arbors i may steel that idea.


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## MrCrankyface (Sep 5, 2021)

Thanks! Feel free!  
Here's another idea I had, pretty darn satisfied!

Milled some holes, yet again the CNC conversion proves useful. 



Slap on tons of wood.



Add some amazon sliders.



Boom!
No more leaning over the dirty mill to reach the tools behind it!
Room for 25x DIN2080(iso40) holders which is way more than I have(so far. )


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## hman (Sep 5, 2021)

MrCrankyface said:


> Room for 25x DIN2080(iso40) holders which is way more than I have(so far. )


Oh, sing me a song about "way more than I have(so far. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





)"!


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## MrCrankyface (Sep 20, 2021)

Limited in time and energy as always but managed to get all the drawer fronts finished-ish.
Needs a quick smoothing around the edges with a sander but so does everything else before I paint it.

Thin aluminium stock so I could split a pretty huge sheet(about 3x2 meter) on the tablesaw.
I hate repetetive tasks so I made a jig to accurately hold the parts, this lets me run the same program over and over without having to measure things in.



A quick testfit is looking promising.



All the fronts secured and I'm loving the look!
I think it's almost time to tear everything apart for a final sand and paint.
Once I lift the granite and cast iron plates off I will also seal up the open areas of the frame beneath them, to stop dust and such from falling into the drawer and cupboard.


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## hman (Sep 20, 2021)

Wowsers .... just Wowsers!


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## MrCrankyface (Sep 26, 2021)

So, still working on the details.
I've learnt from previous mistakes that the drawer front shouldn't protrude too much or crap will gather on it and fall into the drawer when you open the drawer...
So I bent this lip up, quite satisfied with the look.



Went over every single plate with the DA sander to get clean edges and chamfers.
Great way to absolutely destroy sandpapers but the finish is exactly what I was after.



Since I had to take the drawers out to flatten and sand everything, I decided to glue in some thin reinforcements underneath.
The weights preload the bottom a tiny bit so hopefully it prevents sagging when fully loaded with tools.
The plywood "floor" is only 4mm pine, so quite soft.



And then just repeat that a whole bunch of times...
Once this is all dry I'll fill some voids with plaster and they should be ready for paint to prolong their life.


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## MrCrankyface (Oct 5, 2021)

Starting to feel like I'll be working on this project for the next 30 years.

Took all hardware off the drawers and marked it so they get back on the same drawer.



Plastered and started applying some kind of primer paint.




Sanded it smooth again since I had some severe brushstrokes and a few runs.
Then made up this ghetto-rigged spinner thing.
Let's me put a drawer ontop and easily rotate it around, whilst elevating it above the surface below.



I brushed a pretty thick layer of supposedly light gray paint on the underside(looks white to me) and then used a spraygun for the sides/top/inside.
Just one coat so far, will see if I need two or not.


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## MrCrankyface (Oct 16, 2021)

Alright so the drawers didn't have the right "feel" to them with just 1 coat so I sanded down just the fibers that had risen up and applied a second coat, now they're perfect.
Reattached the handles, fronts and slides.
I want to fix the fronts to the boxes with contact cement but since that's pretty permanent, I'm going to wait until I've had a chance to do a final test fit with all the drawers.



So I proceeded with taking everything off the workbench itself, which was a challenge in itself.
Still need to remove the slides and granite level thingy.
Might have gone over the top with the filler but it's pretty therapeutic applying it. 



Before taking the CI plates off I chamfered every edge all around them.
Not sure if it comes off on the photos but it makes them look way nicer "in real life".
Also sanded and wire-wheeled off all the rust and old paint from the sides, haven't decided if I'm going to paint that or just leave it.
To save space I put them high side up and to prevent a disaster if either of them falls over, I clamped them together.


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## MrCrankyface (Oct 21, 2021)

To have a break from the nasty wood working, I had some fun with the two flatbars holding the CI plates to the worktable.
I figured it'd look better if I milled out the space between the plates, since I have a decent gap between them.



After that I went to town with a wirebrush and DA sander before painting them.
I had the choice between black and black. So black it is.



After sanding down the plaster I rolled everything with primer.
Serves two purposes I guess, it makes it easier to spot imperfections and also seals the wood a bit so the final paint doesn't get sucked in too bad.



I skipped priming these parts so I could insert some more stuff here..
These holes are right underneath the CI and granite plates and above the storage drawers/cabinet .. So any dust that gets in here will go right into the storage parts..
So I cut some slices of plywood for ledges, glued and screwed in place.



Then some more plywood ontop of this, the fit is so tight that I hope it will add further torsion resistance.
Everything is screwed and glued but I also went all around with some sealer to really guarantee nothing gets past here.



Feeling like I was nearing the finish line I decided to make things more difficult for myself. 
Used a router trimbit to cut this huge hole in the back, then spent another hour cleaning everything up with a sander.



Why might you ask?
Well the bench is 80cm deep, and the drawers only go 54cm in.
This means there's around 26cm of unused space in here, not a huge amount but too much to waste IMO.
So this should open up this space in the back for further storage, no idea for what yet but rather have it than not.


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## MrCrankyface (Oct 29, 2021)

Took all the feet off and put it up on jackstands.
After several coats of primer and paint with some sanding in between.
I had lots of issues with runny paint so it was a lot of "2 steps forward, 1 step back", but at least the finish is improving.



Eventually I managed to get all factors just right and got this finish.




I mentioned quite a while ago that the feet kept falling off.
Since I took them all off I decided to modify them a bit, there's now a tiny little magnet in the bottom of the foot.
Just enough force to make sure it can't fall off on it's own.



And with them all mounted back on the bench, measured to the same height from the bottom of the bench and locked down.
Might need to adjust in the future, we'll see.



Not such a great angle but this is the "new" compartment I made in the back.
Sure looks better than plain wood...




To make sure not too much garbage gets in beneath the surface plate I added this foam stuff.
Should help quite a bit.


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## MrCrankyface (Nov 9, 2021)

Been procrastinating this quite a bit since I was sure reinstalling everything was going to be a pain in the behind..
Started laying everything out yesterday to just get it over with.



The drawers were a tiny bit too close to eachother last time so I 3D-printed custom spacers for an easy install.



This made the spacing between each drawer perfect BUT the top drawer now doesn't fit, and this was the ordeal I was really not looking forward to.
Decided to just sand it down with with a rough 36 grit paper, actually went quite fast and had to be careful to keep it even to the scribed line. 
Went around all edges with a brush and a few coats of paint afterwards just to seal it up. 



Finally got everything back in place, I really hate lifting those CI plates, had to do a real sketchy setup with my engine hoist..
Need to come up with a better solution for the future but don't have time to rebuild/modify my hoist right now.
The small area in front of the surface plate will hopefully get a steel plate ontop of it, both to protect and to have an "abuseable" surface.
At least I was smart enough to put the bench in the right-ish place before I put the CI plates on it. 



Tons of drawer space and place for more tools that I (currently) own.
I think the added thickness of paint made the slides on the tooling shelf too tight so it's not very smooth,probably need to sand that down a bit to improve the slide.



The tool shelf ended up fairly low to account for my tallest tools, which made the understorage a lot less than I hoped.
But used wisely it should be good for those rarely used tools, time will kinda have to tell.



And finally a proper shot of the backstorage.
50cm/20 inch ruler for scale.
Really need to make a new cover for the surface plate, the current one was part of the crate it came in and is absolutely falling apart.
Would be nice to have something light yet sturdy I could take off and hang on the short side of the bench when not in use.


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## woodchucker (Nov 9, 2021)

good luck with your new bench.
My metal surface plate has two pins (ones missing)... but they were lifting pins, that you wrapped a strap around both and lifted.
you may want to drill deep holes (to help support those pins) and have threads at the ends so that they don't just pull out.. if you make it a tight fit on the shaft into the deep hole the hole takes the weight, not the threads. just an idea, you can remove the pins when not needed.


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## MrCrankyface (Dec 23, 2021)

Thanks! Currently I use these, it's mostly just the sheer mass and the engine hoist not being very easy to move that just makes it difficult to move things around.
The granite plate doesn't have any holes though, but it's light enough to be able to move somewhat easily(50-60kg).



I've made some more progress, finishing touches I guess.
First with a proper cover for the surface plate.
Glued and nailed a bunch of leftover plywood together.




Some plaster and paint later, and the addition of a 10mm thick steel plate infront of it, I think that finishes it off nicely.




I'm positively surprised by how much you can fit in this unit, still got a few empty drawers.
The brown "shelf" on the bottom is a bit of a temporary solution since I didn't have any material in the right size at home, it will work for now.
The upper 'shelf' ment for ISO40 cones also works with some adapters I printed for holding other tooling I got like custom flycutters and sawblade arbors.




I've spent a rdicilous amount of time designing holders for stuff but it really pays off in the end.





So that finishes this project for now, now it's just minor visual details(like that brown shelf) and filling the thing up.


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## MrCrankyface (Jul 1, 2022)

Just a bit of experience dumping after using it for a while.

+The weight is amazing, absolutely no movement no matter how hard you pull and twist on things, even when levered out from a vice etc.
+Plenty of storage room, still got plenty of room left and tons of things I no longer have to have laying around in piles.

-The cast iron was more sensitive than I expected, might have to add a steel plate ontop in the future.
-Total user error, managed to somehow get water into one of the drawers, causing swelling and some rust on the tools. I suspect it might have come through from the threaded holes ontop.
-Boxes have too little spacing between them so even tiny bit of swelling causes issues. Mostly a issue between 2 boxes at the moment, the rest work fine.
-Too few threaded holes in the top, often find myself missing "just that one extra hole" for fixturing.
-The threaded holes are M12 whilst the hold-down kit for my mill is M14, would've been great to upsize to M14 so I don't need multiple fixture sets.
-Pure bonus would've been if the granite plate sat lower than the cast iron plates, and could be raised above when in use.


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## mattthemuppet2 (Jul 1, 2022)

I found that issue with the draws on my bench too -  a little extra weight or some humidity and things start rubbing. I know now to leave more space when working with wood.


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