Shopsmith Forums

I was just looking at "Great Projects for Your Shop Vol.2" from Wood Magazine and noticed an interesting way to add weight to a work bench. The idea is to add sand to the cavity you create below the lower shelf of the bench. They mentioned 50 pounds but depending on the size of the bench and how much of a cavity you create this could be more or less.

Has anyone here done this?

Ed

reible wrote:I was just looking at "Great Projects for Your Shop Vol.2" from Wood Magazine and noticed an interesting way to add weight to a work bench. The idea is to add sand to the cavity you create below the lower shelf of the bench. They mentioned 50 pounds but depending on the size of the bench and how much of a cavity you create this could be more or less.

Has anyone here done this?

Ed

I recently put 2 50# bags of sand under my SS shorty/dedicated drill press. I feel much safer moving the whole contraption around now that it is now longer top heavy. I just made a reinforced 3/4" plywood shelf and added that just above the heavy duty tool mover. Works great.

Sterling

reible wrote:I was just looking at "Great Projects for Your Shop Vol.2" from Wood Magazine and noticed an interesting way to add weight to a work bench. The idea is to add sand to the cavity you create below the lower shelf of the bench. They mentioned 50 pounds but depending on the size of the bench and how much of a cavity you create this could be more or less.

Has anyone here done this?

Ed

My buddy built the this bench up in his summer home in Ohio, then he decided to move it down to Florida. He had sealed the sand in by glueing compartment shut. He got it apart and took out the sand and the move was successful. He put the sand back in and he is happy with the bench

reible wrote:I was just looking at "Great Projects for Your Shop Vol.2" from Wood Magazine and noticed an interesting way to add weight to a work bench. The idea is to add sand to the cavity you create below the lower shelf of the bench. They mentioned 50 pounds but depending on the size of the bench and how much of a cavity you create this could be more or less.

Has anyone here done this?

Ed

No I have not done that. I guess I don't understand the point of why. If you make a bench of hard wood there is no extra weight needed. What does the added artificial weight contribute to the bench? The bench needs a great top but more importantly it needs a great base properly constructed. I am not sure what weight has to do with it unless you are talking about a very small cheaply made bench.

If a bench is made from quality hard wood it doesn't need extra weight.

Maybe I mis-spoke. Weight in a bench is important but as I said, if the bench is constructed with traditional material it will be heavy enough.

My bench top is made from hard maple. the center of the bench top is 2" thick. The aprons are 4" X 4". It weighs somewhere between 150-175 pounds. I have a temporary base made from 2X4's. That gets it up to 200 pounds or close. When the final base is made it will be close to 300 pounds.

I saw that same plan last night. Also saw a plan from ShopNotes for a midi lathe stand where they had a compartment that they stacked 2x8x16" concrete pavers in for weight. Thought that was nicely done and might try to adapt for the SS.

One of my first work benches was really heavy after I added a 212lb bar bell set to it. When I made it I had planned on a lower shelf but when I found this bar bell set at a garage sale for $10 (they were moving and didn't want to have to deal with it anymore). The bench design had double stretchers so the whole bar set just slipped in from the end and it was done.

I wish I had pictures of it. No longer have it but I still have some of the weights (which I use for some gluing options).

This quote says it all "Workbenches, unlike woodworkers can't be to weighty when push comes to shove."

Now that I don't do much hand work anymore I've gone to light weigh portable benches, and being portable means not have anymore weight then it needs. I have a new design in the works even as we speak. Don't know if it will get to ever go to anything more then a sketchup drawing but even that is fun for me.

Ed

Sterling wrote:

reible wrote:I was just looking at "Great Projects for Your Shop Vol.2" from Wood Magazine and noticed an interesting way to add weight to a work bench. The idea is to add sand to the cavity you create below the lower shelf of the bench. They mentioned 50 pounds but depending on the size of the bench and how much of a cavity you create this could be more or less.

Has anyone here done this?

Ed

I recently put 2 50# bags of sand under my SS shorty/dedicated drill press. I feel much safer moving the whole contraption around now that it is now longer top heavy. I just made a reinforced 3/4" plywood shelf and added that just above the heavy duty tool mover. Works great.

Sterling

I was going to post that my brother did the same exact thing.

Then I saw who posted this.

steve

Build the base from 2x4s. Enclose three sides with 3/4 inch plywood. Fill it with drawers also made from 3/4 inch plywood on full extension drawer slides. Fill the drawers with tools of your choice. Put a solid core door preferably hardwood. Drill dog holes and mount a vise. This sucker will be heavy. If it is still not heavy enough you can put clamp racks all around the three sides and hang you clamp collection on it. It might weigh 1000lb when your done.

I have one like this that's not finished yet and its so heavy I cant get the flip out casters out from under it without a jack.

5 or 6 years ago, I bought a solid 4" thick Hard Maple Food Preparation table on Craig's List for $50. It is 8' long and 36" wide, weight I would guess is 400 lbs + that is with no legs, the top was uneven due to opening 1000's of 1 Gallon cans of food on either end of the table where they had mounted two commercial can openers all those cans had worn down the wood around the openers. Last summer I took it to a cabinet shop and with 4 men carrying it we put it through a wide belt thickness sander to even out the top, we took it down to 3.5" thick it took about 50-60 passes through the sander. They charged me $30.

Now I have a perfectly flat smooth Hard Maple bench top on 4X4 legs with 2X4 rails under it and 6" above the floor too. I had planned to build a box of plywood and install drawers on full roll out slides. Will probably do it this summer.

Now here is the quandary, it is much to nice to use as an assembly table and get glue and finish all over the top, so now I have a heavy table to do nothing but store stuff on.

I much prefer light hollow core door blanks from Menards and a pair of saw horses to get down and dirty on for assembly and just plain trying to work on.

I'll probably never use the heavy top for any of the normal usages that such a bench was intended for in the Old Historical wood working/cabinet shop.

You can clamp a Syliss Vice

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Zyliss-Original ... 1763588462

on the edge of most of my benches and it makes any of them usable as a very long or short holding system. The holding system is what makes a bench usable not so much the weight of the table itself.

Several good coats of Johnson Paste Wax should keep glue from sticking. You could also hang a three foot wide roll of butcher paper on one end and roll out a new sheet for protection during glue-ups. Seems like a waste to use that table for storage, although that is what happens to every horizontal surface in my garage/shop.

Mike