Third (and final???) workbench construction.

Work progress has slowed down lately, as I am sure some of you following this blog have noticed. A large part of the problem is that everything is everywhere and nothing is really in place, so I end up spending more than half my time moving things around in order to find stuff and it really has killed a lot of forward progress and that is NOT good. So, Anthony and I are pushing to get the shop cleaned up and organized. A big part of doing that is constructing a third workbench that will be come a semi-permanent home to tools that should be mounted on a bench. 

You'll notice (eventually) that the design is completely different than the previous two workbenches I designed and built. This was partially because we had a bunch of leftover 2x4s and a hefty piece of 3/4" ply from the old, monster workbench that formerly occupied the back of the left of the garage and also because this workbench will be yanked on and abused in a whole lot of a different manner than the other two workbenches. 

Getting started:

I really enjoyed the sun today. The days are getting shorter, and I soak up as much of the sun's rays while I can.

After a whole lot of thinking, measuring and cutting, I had figured out pretty much how I would make everything work:

 Note: this is completely designed in my head, on the fly with no real plan of WTF I was doing. I made changes along the way and made a few mistakes, but, overall, this sucker is going to be pretty darn good.

Another pic of the structure coming together:

I decided to use the ply to build the upper structure on, since I checked it and it was actually pretty square:

The upper structure is nearly complete:

I don't like to work past 9PM during the week, so that is where I ended for the evening. This will get finished tomorrow and that will let me get my most used tools in place so I can finish wiring in the outlets to actually power everything without having to trip over extension cords or even take the time to unplug one tool and plug another one in. If you think that doesn't take long to do, it really doesn't, but if you take half a minute each time and spread that over the whole day, at least 30 times, it adds up to minutes each day that can be spent working instead of throwing a switch and getting crap done, since you have to put down what you are working on move to wherever the next tool is, un-plug, plug in, switch on, pick your thing back up and then switch the next tool on. Yech.

Some other things worth mentioning:
-I pre-drill all the holes. This works soooo much better. The wood doesn't split, the screws grab better and the whole thing seems to come together with less tweaking needed.
-The bench will sit at 31" tall. This is much lower, but for a reason. Since all the machines that I will be working with are at least 3-4 " working height to add to that, putting everything at a comfortable working height, which is important for keeping your back intact when working every day with your machines and tools.

More tomorrow!