Folding Workbench

After rearranging my dorm room, I discovered that there's actually enough room to put in a workbench! Provided, of course, that I can fold it away when it's not in use.

This folding workbench consisted mostly of materials I already had on hand. It cost me less than $30 to make.

Step 1: Design constraints

When I moved into my dorm room at the beginning of the year, I never imagined I would have space for a workbench. East Campus rooms are not horribly small, but mine's a double--so every square foot of floor space counts. When I rearranged my half of the room after Christmas break, I discovered that there might actually be a place to fit a workbench!

The pictures below show where the bench will go. Before Christmas, this is where my desk was. Now my desk is directly below the camera, rotated the other way--there are perhaps four feet of space between it and the wall. (This was the primary motivation for making a folding bench; I still wanted room to push my chair back.)

My bench design began with a bit of serendipity. I found a discarded piece of 5/8" plywood in the lounge. It measured 24" by 48"--perfect!

Unfortunately, this piece of plywood was pretty ugly.

Comments

[manishrkp]

Very useful instructable.

[yousuffarooq]

Cool I might make my own

[lordofthedonuts]

It's a good idea, nice 'ible, but what do you do when you have to hammer something?

[trinit]

I hammer on the concrete floor.

[Aud1073cH]

Great idea. I really needed a workbench when I was at school (so I ended up going to the unused physics labs to do my work). I suppose the molding has to be very secure, or the rigging would pull the molding off the wall? where do you get webbing?

[MissMercurial]

Man, I totally envy you for being able to do stuff like that in your dorms...in mine there's a policy of no attaching stuff to the walls via basically any method ;__; Your workbench came out great! The only thing I might add is a folding support, like a plank that was hinged so it would be flush against the bench's bottom when not in use and then could be swung down to help support the bench when the bench is in use. But that's just me wanting a backup support in case the webbing straps somehow got dislodged from position. Although a leg like I'm picturing would probably ruin the nice aesthetic you've got going here :/ Maybe an easier solution would be to add webbing that crosses at the back, like how those "magic wallets" have sides with Xs for holding money. That would be much more lightweight and would take advantage of the excess webbing. Anyway, enough rambling. Great job!

[Subconscionaut]

I'm fairly certain hand sanitizer actually has, if not denatured alcohol, some sort of alcohol in it, it sanitizes and evaporates! Solvent action is kinda cool.

[harmless matt]

I'm pretty sure that the active ingredient is isopropanol.

[Subconscionaut]

I have recently discovered another use for hand sanitizer gel. I spray a lot of paint and it gets crap off of glasses without scratching them when applied with a dry soft cloth. I am assuming this works on plastic lenses because alcohol is the only solvent I know that doesn't damage clear plastic surfaces (lexan, plexiglas, polycarbonate) At least most other solvents will etch or cloud these. There are plastic polishes, like Novus, that can rehab plastic, sometimes even larger scratches, but they can still leave a level of distortion on a lens that's distracting.

[bob the builder #1]

I'm gonna make one like this with chains that hangs from the ceiling.

[Wade Tarzia]

Good project. If the table folded up, then you could have a framed picture tacked to the bottom to provide a second function.

[bob the builder #1]

that's what I thought of that wold be cool

[theRIAA]

i just bought 300ft of paracord from there a week ago. it rocks! they also don't tell you the 300ft comes on a spool, it was a nice surprise. its a really nice looking table! i had no idea plywood could look that good but defiantly screw or staple those straps to the table so they don't slip off

[sdallesasse]

Where did you get ther paracord from? Interested in doing something like this in my garage.

[theRIAA]

http://www.cheaperthandirt.com/MHR320-1469-584.html

i used up the black 300ft spool pretty fast so i got 1000ft in OD green. The quality is the same, I use it to hang hammocks and secure stuff; it hasn't even shown a sign of wear. Cheaper than dirt has that for the lowest price anywhere; $50 after shipping (shop around, the next lowest price is ebay for $50 before shipping.

they also have black spools there. Get the 1000ft, you wont be sorry.

[ehedward]

I love this idea, and I'd like to build on it to install a murphy-bed type thing in a 13 year old's bed room. Do you all think this would work? What changes would I need to make?

[threecheersfornick]

They have those at a cabin we visit sometimes. They're a bit freaky at first, 'cause the chains holding it up rattle around and it feels like you might fall off (of course they can't have a guard rail) -- but after a while you get used to it. The ones I used where just platforms with mattresses on them. They attached to the wall with door hinges, and had a little 2x4 brace to stop them from flopping all the way down. the edge away from the wall is held up by chains, as I already mentioned. I hope that made sense!

[p1pe]

Fantastic! Great, well thought out project. Excellent instructable

[StepsoftheSun]

That looks great! You seem to have proved that Instructables can be well written even after the actual work has been done. And it's odd to read this having finished cutting 2x4's for a simple (and way less elegant) bench for my room only hours ago. Will more projects be forthcoming now that you have this workspace?

[trinit]

I sure hope so.

[jordan.day]

This is a very nice project. Have you had any problems with accidently bumping the webbing while the bench is "deployed?" That would be my biggest concern with this design, but I suppose notching the plywood on the edge would solve that problem pretty handily.

[trinit]

It's actually not much of a concern at all. Friction basically holds the webbing in place; you could shove the straps off, but it's not likely to happen accidentally. The convenience of being able to instantly disassemble the thing is much more significant, in my opinion.

[theRIAA]

Oh... it folds down.. why not up? it would be easier to fold away and un-fold if the staps were stapled and there was a little hook or something on top to hold it up when not in use... oh well

[trinit]

From here, I could actually do either... but there's room for shelves above.

[kari]

very cool!

[Robotrix]

I'm glad yuo did this. I was thinking of something along the same lines for a drawing table, but my idea included front legs that would fold down as well. Do you find your table is very sturdy without the legs? How much weight can it support?

[trinit]

It feels sturdy... if not a bit dynamic. The webbing and paracord stretch a bit under load, maybe up to an inch of deflection? I've carefully put up to my own weight on it at the edges--but I'm not quite comfortable, say, sitting on it.

[mrdspecs]

Good project. This is no less than the excellence I expect from you trinit.