How to make a workbench in a garage with your own hands

Recommendation points

• What do we want from the workbench
• Workbench base: frame and legs
• What should be the countertop
• Drawers, doors and everything for storage
• Workplace lighting
• Vices, stops and other devices

Today is our review for male craftsmen or car enthusiasts. It will be about organizing the main workplace in a garage or workshop – a comfortable and functional workbench that has sufficient strength and all the necessary devices.

What do we want from the workbench

For most, a garage is not just a place to store a car, but a real workshop. Unlike the workplace in the apartment, the garage is used to work with massive and bulky parts, often dirty. Also, quite often you have to bend and straighten the metal, use electric arc welding, securely clamp the part with clamps or in a vice.

The main requirements that should be imposed on a garage workbench are massiveness, strength, resistance to dirt, surface resistance to heat and shock. In addition, the workbench should be compact and, if possible, as less material as possible..

It is desirable that the workbench has a simple assembly scheme, implying easy dismantling. The workbench should not be largely dependent on the surrounding capital structures, for example, it is not recommended to embed and concreted the legs into the floor.

Workbench base: frame and legs

First you need to assemble a lightweight frame – the base for the countertop. These are four corners 40×40 mm or 50×50 mm facing each other with inner shelves. You can splicate short sections of the corners by butt welding: no special structural strength is required from the frame, but it is advisable to add an arbitrary number of jumpers. The length of the table top can be any, even the entire wall, and the width is such that you can easily reach the corner by the wall with your hands. In the upper part of the frame, which forms the inner cavity, an array of countertops will subsequently be assembled, and the outer shelves will serve as a plane of support for the underlying elements.

If the issue of lack of space in the garage is acute, it must be addressed immediately. The best wall to place your workbench is the one directly opposite the gate. It is easiest to roll the machine halfway back, leaving plenty of room for work and free passage on both sides. Therefore, on the end wall, we nail the corner with the outer shelf upwards, the level is 50-60 mm lower than the desired height of the working surface. The height of the workbench is individual for everyone, but usually 100 cm is subtracted from the height of a person.

If the workbench is from corner to corner, then on adjacent walls, also nail along the corner with a length to the depth of the tabletop or slightly less. Fastening to the wall is performed with anchor bolts and quite often, preferably in each masonry element, that is, after 20-25 cm. It is optimal if every meter is welded 30-40 cm tail, directed downwards and fixed with an anchor.

Lay the frame on the support corner, then proceed with the installation of the supports. It is advisable to make them oblique so that the lower ends of the legs rest against the corner between the floor and the wall. At this point, a backing made of a piece of angle steel is installed. In the upper part, the leg is joined to the frame 50–80 mm from the edge, but not directly, but is welded to the plate, which is then bolted. Sloped legs will save more space for a passenger car to enter.

It is very easy to level the table. The longitudinal plane is specified by a corner fixed to the wall. To get rid of the blockage of the table, you just need to push the slanting leg a little deeper, slightly undercutting the angle of the cut with a grinder. After making all the fasteners, holes are drilled in them:

• for fastening the frame with a corner for an M12 bolt every 50 cm;
• for fastening the frame with the legs – under the M10 bolt, four pieces for each plate.

What should be the countertop

Before assembling the tabletop, you need to fasten all the base elements with bolts, inserting them from top to bottom. The tightening is carried out final, the caps will subsequently be recessed into the solid countertops.

The main filler for the countertop is solid wood or chipboard sheets. The first is preferable in terms of massiveness and the ability of solid wood to damp shock vibration well. The thickness of the board should be such that when placed in a frame, its plane protrudes quite a bit above the corners. Ideally, use boards of the same thickness as the outside corner size. In this case, each plank before the set should be brought with a plane so that it protrudes only 1-1.5 mm.

When dialing a tabletop, the direction of the planks is across the length of the workbench. The board shield needs to be tightly rallied; for this, a small block is temporarily screwed to the last fixed board, for which the new board is pressed with a trigger clamp. Boards are fastened from below through the corner of the frame, a pair of self-tapping screws on each side.

If there are bolt heads along the way, try on the board and tap on it with a hammer to make the caps dents, then select the grooves with a large drill and a chisel or feather drill. Do not forget to chamfer the ends of the boards, because the corners have a rounded interface between the inner shelves. When all the boards are collected, the surface must be leveled with a sander, grinding the wood down to a level.

After the planks have been set, work on the surface finish. Optimally, a hot-rolled sheet 2.5–3 mm thick is suitable for this: such a workbench can be used as a welding table, straighten tin, spill any liquid. Heat resistance is provided by a magnesite sheet or asbestos cloth, which is laid over the boards. In this case, the thickness of the lumber should be less than usual. The lining can protrude 1–2 mm above the frame, after metal upholstery this will not be a problem.

The metal should be laid with a distance of 10-15 mm from the rear wall, you can temporarily fix a small wooden plank. After that, the edge of the sheet is pressed with clamps and straightened down evenly along the entire length. The corner rib will provide a nice right angle.

After bending, the spacer bar is removed from the wall, and the sheet is pulled towards itself a little, a board is put under it and holes of 7–8 mm are drilled after 50 cm. Through them, the places in the corner of the frame are marked, in which holes of 5 mm are drilled and the M6 ​​thread is cut. The sheet is attracted to the frame by bolts with a semicircular head, here fixation is needed for high-quality metal turning. Having straightened the lower corner, fasten the sheet from the bottom by analogy with the end of the table top, but now you need to make undercuts for the legs and fasten in a checkerboard pattern with the end bolts.

The installation of the countertop is completed by installing a corner 25×25 mm in the corner near the wall in the manner of a plinth. Through the holes every 25-30 cm, it is attracted to the wood of the countertop with self-tapping screws, and then fixed to the wall with anchor bolts after 50-70 cm. If you want the coating to rust less, remove the sheet before fixing it to the end, warm it up well with a blowtorch and rub cotton rags liberally moistened with used mineral oil.

Drawers, doors and everything for storage

When the base of the workbench is ready, you can easily add the necessary niches, shelves and other equipped storage places. In the lower zone, it is convenient to weld corners with braces to the legs, on which it is enough just to lay plank shelves. Cascading will make everything stored on them highly visible and easily accessible.

Under the main working area of ​​the workbench, it is recommended to choose one or two spans between the legs and organize the exit shelves in the upper part of them, similar to keyboard ones. It is very convenient to equip organizers for the most frequently used tools on these shelves. Since the load on the exit mechanism is moderate, you can use furniture rails for full extension, having previously welded a couple of corners under the table to secure them.

Another convenient area for storing small items at hand is the wall opposite. It is very useful to fix a perforated panel on it, where it is convenient to hang on hooks both a power tool and hammers, hacksaws, consumables, etc., including several portable posts with sockets. One or a pair of shelves fixed 5-10 cm higher than your height will help organize the space even better. The bottom plane is convenient to use for mounting lighting, while the shelves themselves are a classic “long box” for any trash useful in the future.

Workplace lighting

Two options should be seriously considered as light sources: ceiling fluorescent lamps for two lamps or LED lights. The main advantage of the former is their low cost, but mercury tubes are easy to break through carelessness, plus such lighting requires periodic repair.

LED floodlights are somewhat more expensive, but much more durable and less power hungry. Of the shortcomings, you can also highlight a fairly sharp light, casting contrasting shadows. This is solved either by installing opaque diffusers or light guides, or by increasing the number of lanterns up to 5-6 pieces and crossing their light fluxes. Don’t forget a small portable lamp to always have at hand, and an extra table lamp.

Vices, stops and other devices

As a conclusion, we will give a couple of tips: what and how to equip a workbench for convenient work. The first and most obvious one is the bench vice. They must be massive enough; for a garage, a solution of sponges of at least 15 cm is recommended. Please note that you need to fix the vice through the table, providing a counter steel plate with holes on the bottom side. The optimal location is 100–120 cm from any of the corners of the workbench, while it is advisable to provide additional holes so that the vice can be turned at right angles.

The second invariable attribute is a slab for cutting metal. It is not worth purposefully breaking the table cover, especially if there is a heat-resistant gasket under it. The optimal dimensions of the slab are 300×300 mm with a thickness of at least 20 mm. If you have difficulty in selecting such a thick metal, weld together several thin plates, having previously tightened them with bolts.

Depending on the area of ​​your hobbies, a carpentry vise, a removable mandrel for tin work and several adjustable stoppers: corners with pins that are inserted into holes in the tabletop with fasteners twisted from below, may also be useful. It is also very useful to set aside space for finishing and fine work by laying a sheet of glass there on a springy rubber lining..