A tall work table with angled legs and simple joints

When I moved I only brought my old woodworking bench to work on but it's too light, small and short for most things and I always used to get stuck on the front vise or trip over the base. I found some store fixtures in the new place, including snap together shelves almost big enough for my collection of old fasteners, a tall counter with drawers and some specially made panels that had a lip on the bottom. The counter was a great height and long but narrow with walls on three sides. I tried making a fancy base for the panels with complicated interlocking joints but the elm I used was very difficult to work, and I made it this way instead to make up for all the time I wasted.

I copied the shape from a sturdy old metal machine stand and it took a while for me to recognize that the table looks and works a little like a sawhorse. It's also similar to the front of a famous historical design for a woodworking bench if you imagine it twisted around a little. It's ugly but I think it's pretty strong, I made a stand for my woodworking lathe the same way, and have turned a few things just about at its full capacity without much trouble, and I even have put small pianos on top of the original one. My new woodworking bench is made in a similar way, too.

The work table can come apart just by unscrewing depending if you use good screws and don't glue things together.

Step 1 Materials

My table top is 160cm x 107cm with a sort of rectangular hole in the middle that had a kind of clamp for something, and 2cm thick with a 5cm wide double thickness section around the perimeter. I don't know where it's from or what it's for. The lip helps strengthen it around the edges but it sags a little in the middle. You could could mortise the legs into a flat top but it would probably be alright just sticking on L-shaped things in the corners.

The legs are birch, 13cm x 5cm section and 1m long. They are quite big for weight as well as strength. They used to be backposts in an upright piano, and the maple ones for the lathe were in a pallet.

The stretchers are oak, the four long ones are 2cm x 6cm and 160cm long and the two short ones are 2.5cm x 12cm and 101cm long. I think they're from a bed or a table.

I used two number 10 or 12 flat head wood screws for each joint. They don't go all the way through.

The bottom shelf is part of an old shipping crate, the label says it was for a laser engraver but I don't know what kind. It's bad quality plywood that I use whenever I can so I don't have to throw it away.

Comments

[steliart]

It looks strong enough for what you want it to be and it wont go anywhere.
Thanks for sharing.

[DELETED_craz meanman]

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