I found a small desk on the street curb and took it home. At the time I didn't know what I was going to make with it. Eventually I decided to make a flip top tool stand for my sanders. This way I could have them both in one place. I replaced the fiber board with plywood scrap that I had and used an electrical conduit as the pivot. I didn't really have a plan when I started building just a rough idea of what I wanted. The handles I made aren't ideal but they will work for now until I come up with something else.

Build video:

Step 1:

The first thing I did was take it apart and made sure to save all the hardware so I could reuse it.

Step 2:

Next I figured out what size I wanted the top and bottom shelves to be then marked and cut those pieces to length using my circular saw. I cut 5 pieces that were all the same width and length. Then I cut one of those pieces in half. I took these two smaller halves and removed about 7/16 of inch off of one side of each halve. This will make more sense when I glue everything up.

Step 3:

With all the pieces cut I took one full size piece and covered the whole side with glue. Then I took one of the smaller half pieces and glued it to the full size piece. I took the second half piece and stuck it to the other side of the full size piece making sure to leave a gap for the electrical conduit. The last picture shows what it should look like.

Step 4:

Now I added more glue to the two half pieces and spread that over the entire surface. Then I laid another full size piece on top of the two half pieces sandwiching everything together. I didn't want to wait for the glue to dry so I screwed all three layers together.

Step 5:

I made the bottom shelf by gluing 2 of the full size pieces together and securing them with screws. Again I didn't feel like waiting for the glue to dry.

Step 6:

Next I found the center of the two desk sides and used my stepped drill bit to drill a hole in the center of the top rail on each desk side. I made sure the hole was just big enough for the electrical conduit to slide through.

Step 7:

I did a quick mock up with a test spin to see if it was going to work. It was looking promising so far.

Step 8:

Using the same hardware from the disassembly I attached the bottom shelf to both sides of the desk. I made sure to pre-drill pilot holes before screwing together.

Step 9:

The desk felt a little flimsy at this point so I cut a scrap piece of plywood and attached it to the bottom shelf and lower section of the desk sides. This helped stiffen up the entire piece.

Step 10:

I was going to leave the bottom shelf open but looking at it I decided to enclose it and make a couple of compartments for my angle grinder and palm sander. Again using some scrap plywood I made two storage compartments for those two tools. I screwed these together, no glue incase I want to change the configuration.

Step 11:

I used my porta band to cut the electrical conduit to length. I drill one hole on each end so that a screw could be used as a keeper of sorts. The screw head will stop the conduit from sliding out of the holes almost like a cotter pin would.

Step 12:

With the bottom shelf done I installed the top. I made sure to use washers on both sides of the rail so four washers total. Then I secured the conduit with the two screws as mentioned in the previous step.

Step 13:

In order to lock the flip top in place I decided to use some 3-1/2 inch long 5/16 inch bolts that I would modify as handles, more on this in the next step. First I predrilled 1/4 holes in all four corners then using the same 5/16 inch bolt I tapped all the holes to make threads in each hole. A threaded insert would work better for this but the hardware store didn't have any in stock so I used this method instead.

Step 14:

In order to make it so that I could easily remove the bolts I decided to add a 90 degree bend to each bolt. I heated up each bolt and got it red hot. Then I clamped it in my vise and using my pliers and a few taps from a hammer bent them to 90 degrees.

Step 15:

Now it was just a matter of threading the bolts in to all the corners to lock the flip top in place.

Step 16:

The last thing to do was to put my sanders on the flip top and mark the mounting hole locations, drill the holes and attach the tools with a few nuts and bolts.

Step 17:

I hope to get a lot of use out of the addition to my shop. Having all those tools in one place helped clean up my shop a little bit too. I was also able to use the sides as clamp storage which was a nice bonus. I hope you found this Instructable helpful.

I will be entering this in the Reclaimed Contest if you think I deserve a vote please do so. Thank you.

Build video: