Refurbished bench top with a new lease of life
I couldn't avoid it any longer: my workbench
needed help. It had been looking
the worse for wear for a while and
something needed to be done. I have to
admit that I hadn't been taking as much
care of it as I should have, so its decline
had accelerated in recent months. It was
time to take remedial action.
Before refurbishment:
needing a little TLC
Quick refurb
This type of bench is designed to be fairly
straightforward to refurbish, and so less
than a day's work can bring it back close to
its new condition. The top is laminated
from 19mm plywood, while the main work
surface and the tool-well are clad with
'sacrificial' top layers of 6mm plywood. The
front and end edges are finished with
hardwood lipping. When it gets a bit too
battered, bruised and stained, replacing
these components brings the top back to an
as-new state.
The stand is a simple pine framework
with halving joints connected by coach
bolts, so it can be dismantled if I ever need
to move it. The end frames are braced with
diagonal steel bars, giving excellent rigidity.
There are two full-depth shelves to keep
tools close to hand; planes and sharpening
kit are conveniently stored on the upper
shelf, and heavier and less frequently used
items are on the one below.
1. Beech plugs give a firm fixing for the edge lippings
2. The vices are rebated into the top before fitting the lippings
Firmly-fixed lippings
The edge lipping is fi xed in position with
coach bolts, recessed into counterbored
holes. Since screwing into the edge of
plywood doesn't give a very sound fixing, I
glued turned beech plugs into 20mm holes
drilled in the end grain of the laminated
top,
photo 1. This still involves end-grain
screwing, but the beech gives a pretty solid
fixture, and anyway there isn't much stress
on these lippings.
The front and right-hand end lippings
also form the stationary jaws for the two
vices. To allow this, the stationary vice jaws
need to be rebated into the front edges of
the top, photo 2. The bench dog holes in
the top are 19mm diameter and take either
Black & Decker or Axminster dogs.
Ready-made templates
I didn't need to do any measuring for this
refurbishment, since I could use the old
parts as templates for drilling the holes for
the coach bolts and bench-dogs, photos 3-5.
I left the lipping slightly wider than the
finished dimensions so that once they were
screwed in place they could be planed flush
with the top. The 6mm ply top is simply
pinned in place, photo 6, and the pins set
below the surface with a nail set.
3. Using the old lippings as templates for drilling the new bolt holes
4. Counterboring the holes for the heads of the coach bolt
5. Again, the old top can be used as a template for the bench dog holes
6. The pinned 6mm ply top can be easily replaced in the future
7. Bolting bracing beams under the top prevents it sagging
Stiffening the top
In its earlier life I noticed the top sagging a
bit in the middle, so I added 90mm x 40mm
softwood bracing beams bolted through the
benchtop to the underside of the working
area, photo 7. Since I put them in, the top
has stayed totally fl at. All the bolts through
the top (for mounting the vices and the
bracing beams) are recessed into
counterbored holes which are each plugged
with a hardwood cap so that they don't
'telegraph' through the thinner ply facing.
The plugs aren't glued in place, so the bolts
can still be accessed if necessary.
Now, after just one day of attention, the
bench is ready for another decade of
woodworking service.
8. A couple of coats of an oil/varnish mixture gives adequate protection
Finishing off
Applying a finish isn't strictly
necessary, but it does create a
barrier from glue spills and
splashes. I opted to wipe on two
coats of oil varnish mixture,
which is fast and easy to apply.
Repeating this every six months
or so keeps the surfaces
protected and looking good.
