While some of my brethren here have shops large enough to own every large machine their budget (or wife) allows, alas, I am not so fortunate. I work out of a 2 car garage, and need to move my machines back to their holding areas at night to allow the cars to be parked. As a result, some of my machines such as my bandsaw and drill press are benchtop models. Please cue the violins…
Working with long stock can be dicey without some additional support, and I’ve become tired of my usual method of stacking various items around the shop to the right height. Not to mention that the cat becomes annoyed when I take his scratch pads, which happen to stack up perfectly. So, I designed an adjustable support to alleviate said problems.
It’s a simple design that starts with a sandwich of 3 plywood layers. I know walnut plywood is ridiculous for shop fixtures but that’s what I had. The outer layers have a 1 1/4” wide groove cut on the tablesaw, and the inner layer pieces align with those cuts to produce a square hole. The legs are sized slightly smaller to move up and down easily, and held in place with knobs that go into threaded inserts. The bottom base piece is sized to be easily clamped to my bench. And yes, before you question my sanity, I did edge band the plywood base because I just couldn’t stand the hideously ugly edges. Yes, I know it’s only a shop fixture. At least I didn’t hide the screws in the top support with wood plugs, although that was seriously considered. My therapist says that with only 20 or 30 more sessions, I might avoid these problems in the future.
Overall, it works great. And Ziggy the cat is much happier.
"Simple" in design, but I can see many benefits in it. The size of your workshop has nothing to do with it... It can be handy in the biggest of workshops... in fact the portability and small footprint may be more useful than many can imagine... even if its put on a stool to level large machinery operations.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
Nice job and certainly useful. Why not walnut plywood? I have used mahogany pieces for my miter gauge and push stick... it's a way to reward ourselves sometimes... why not make beautiful tools for ourselves, we deal with them on a daily basis, so it will put a smile on your face ;)
C'mon Foggy... forget the plugs... remove the screws and you have a perfect excuse to get a Domino... and if you already have a Domino, you can waste all those shekels you've just saved on another Fe$tool/Woodpecker/BridgeCity.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
You should size the stand based on your tool height or intended usage. In my case, I wanted the support to max out about 1 and a half inches higher than my bandsaw for some wiggle room. I then worked backwards to determine the height of the other components. I think the walnut base support is 10” and the legs slightly shorter.
I wasn’t going to revisit this thread because I don’t want to take away from other people’s projects, but while we’re here I must make a confession…I succumbed to the Dark Side. The voices inside my head kept whispering “plug those holes, and while you’re at it add a finish “. It didn’t help that I was egged on by a few people here, you know who you are. I vow to repent by spending 2 hours hand sanding my sawhorses.
