It’s hard to improve on this style of work bench. They are very strong yet light and inexpensive. I like your idea of moving the mounting brackets toward the inside edge.
I have the same one. One of the handles broke so I'm most likely going to replace both with wooden ones. Great job with the saw table I'll do this to mine aswell
Mine snapped in two today so I grabbed two pieces of old decking ,sanded it down and now it's far better than it was and I have had it for almost 20 yrs. I hate to throw away salvageable items , it's such a waste Great vid
Move the screw of the swiveling bracket (at 5:30) to the hole facing thr other board to reduce bending when clamping real tight. You need to enlarge the hole though. Helped a lot with my bench.
Years after you left this comment, I'm searching for a solution to that exact problem. Thanks for this tip! EDIT: It took probably 10 min to do that modification. Vertical movement of mating surface during clamping was reduced to fraction of the original!
Nice job, but you forgot one small detail. If you look at the two original top pieces you discarded you will see that each has a longitudinal notch cut on the inside face, whose purpose is to hold round work pieces such dowels and rods. I have one of these work benches and find this a useful feature.
I’ve used my workmate professionally for 25 years now. It’s got 2 small saw cuts in the jaws (not done by me!) apart from that it’s as good today as when I took it out of its box. you might wanna think about using a bit of scrap wood to drill into instead of the workmate jaws?
Your care and attention is admirable, but also quite unusual I would say. Of course its right and proper to back the workpiece with scrap, but that means clamping whereas most users of these makeshift solutions choose to just hold it down with the other hand for speed.Benchtops, jigs, saw hooks etc are sacrificial in my world. This is just normal. YMMV.
Are you going to make some bench dog holes for clamping odd shaped things, I did the same to my bench and the dog holes are very handy for irregular shaped items.
John Smith Sorry, John, not building on your comment; just can't find my own place to start. I have a workmate, too, and use it a lot. Not looking, I have the impression that the jaws meet with a longitudinal "v" slot to hold round material. I watched to see how you'd duplicate this feature (I want to enlarge my old slots). I use my dog holes commonly, so am surprised that you don't. I'm in the mood to have some good hold-down clamps besides clamps off the side. Any good ideas?
I didn't replicate those slots, mainly because I've never used them - however, if I was going to put them in, I'd either use a v groove bit in a router (with the fence attached), or clamp a batten with a 45 degree cross section against the timber, then run a hand plane down against it - side face of the plane running against the batten, so that the corner of the blade cuts the V groove
I'm actually looking for a workbench and I really like the all metal construction of the winding mechanism and metal guide on your work bench. I've looked at Black & Decker Workmates but part of their winding mechanism is plastic and I'm concerned over time they will wear and break. What workbench were you repairing. I'm wondering if I can get one like that in 2021?
Not really. I've had this one for 25 years or more, so I've not looked at any on sale. Maybe have a look at second hand items on ebay for something that's older and better made
I just checked and it looks to me very much like the Silverline folding workbench is the same design as mine. Can't vouch for the quality having remained the same over the intervening years, of course.
Probably it would have been easier (and EVEN cheaper....?) simply to laminate new plywood or timber over top the old....and replace missing fasteners....?
