Portable Workbench Build Process
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Posted 28th March 2021
The problem with having nothing to do on the project while the glue dry is it gets me thinking.
I've decided to make a small (but awkward now that it's glued together) change to the design. I'm going to shorten the feet. At the moment, they stick out about 75 mm on each side of the body. I'm going to trim that down to 60 mm (or a little under). It'll still provide plenty of clamping area I think but will make the overall width of the workbench a little smaller (500 mm rather than 530 mm).
Updated CAD model:
The reason I want to do this is that I plan to keep the workbench on top of the table saw when not in use (and probably will also use it while it's on the table saw). At the moment the space on top of the table saw is occupied by my cross-cut sled. What hadn't occurred to me before now is that the depth of the cross-cut sled is 500 mm, so if the bench is that size or less, it'll fit neatly on the sled. If it's wider than that, I'll have to find a new home for the sled and I can't think of where that might be!
Cutting the feet shorter will be very straightforward I think: either with a hand saw or with the table saw and the cross-cut sled. What's going to be difficult is re-rounding over the edges. With the fixed jaws in place, the only way I'll be able to get the router to the end of the feet will be end on, but the surface area is far too small. Hopefully I'll be able to rig something up so that the foot (and it's attached jaw) is clamped to something firmly, but also have a raised work surface around the foot end to support the router base. Something to think about tomorrow anyway.
While I was out there pondering, I also decided that I'll probably screw the support rails into the feet and fixed jaws. I'd initially planned to glue them (and I still will), but I'd been considering dowels and such like. I think all that is too much faff for little benefit, so I'll cover the area in glue, plonk the vice rail in place and screw it down to both the foot and the fixed jaw. The screws will be hidden by the bench top. I've marked up where the holes will go, but I'll drill out the clearance holes, pilot holes and countersinks later:
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