Project Table

A few weeks back, I was in Harbor Freight and spotted a large plastic shop cart.  That got me to thinking I needed one of my own.  They're not cheap though, somewhere around $80.  At the same time I was tossing around the idea of making a heavy duty work bench.  The problem is I just don't have much room at the moment.  So somehow the two thoughts merged and I came up with the Project Workbench on Wheels.

I like the high top work tables you often see in magazines and I wanted something easy to work at, so I decided it should be on the tall side, around 40" tall should be about right.  Also I wanted it to be large enough to hold the new table top disk sander I just got for Christmas.  Sadly it's still in the box, because I just don't have anywhere to use it.  So I got out the graph paper and came up with this.  A table that was roughly 2 and a half feet wide by 4 feet.

I spent around $100 dollars on the materials.  Yes it could be done for much less, if I used scraps or if I did this and not that, but I wanted this to look nice and be easy to use.  Here's my list of materials.

• 2 six foot long 4x4's
• 3 eight foot long 2x4's
• one 4x8 sheet of plywood, I got the 3/4 inch 
• 4 of the 3 inch locking casters
• a box of Kreg 2 1/2 inch screws.

The 4x4's got cut roughly in half to make the corner posts.  I cut the rails and stringers for the frame of the table from the 2x4s.  I believe they were around 28" long for the four side rails and 15" for the ends.  The plywood got cut into three equal pieces because I wanted the table top to be approximately 2 1/2 feet wide by 4 feet long.  I had decided I wanted the table top to hang over roughly 4 inches on all sides to give me a good surface to use clamps on, and also to sit up under while doing detailed work like soldering.

When it came time to build the frame, I used the Kreg pocket hole jig.  If you don't already own one of these go and get one.  It will open up a whole new world of possibilities for you.  If your projects fall into the weekend warrior class, like mine, you'll soon be doing much more in less time and it will look better than ever before.  People will think you're some kind of woodworking master, but actually it's just a simple tool.
Check out their site here.

See how quickly that went together.  The pocket hole joints are very strong, and easy to do with the jig.  I screwed and glued each of these and it took less than 20 minutes.

I added the casters here then flipped the whole thing over to see how it rolled.

The height was exactly what I wanted.  Now to do the tabletop and bottom shelf.  I cut the plywood into three pieces.  I then squared the sides using a router to get them smooth and perfectly straight.

I wanted the corners to be rounded so as not to bang into things and myself, plus the plywood looked shabby on the corners.  For this I found a rounded scrap from another project and clamped it under the corners.  Then it was just a matter of using a tracing bit on the router to duplicate the shape on all four corners.

I then counter sunk screws into the top of the frame, and fastened a second sheet of plywood on top using wood glue and my staple gun.  Then I used the same tracing router bit to make the top piece flush with the first.  This gave me a very thick and sturdy tabletop that can take alot of abuse.

Then it was just a matter of  cutting out a few pieces to fit the bottom shelf.  These I did in two sections.  I wanted them to hang over a little to match up with the look of the top, so it was a little bit of a task figuring out just how this should be done.  I made a cutout from scrap that would fit the way I wanted in the corner then used it as a template to cut the real shelf.  It worked out pretty good and I looks the way I had planned.

After putting away almost every tool and measuring device I own, and sweeping up a butt load of saw dust and scrap I now had a rolling work table.

Then came the sanding which cleaned it all up pretty nice.  I'll be using this to do everything from spray painting to potting plants.  I can see it being used as a bar during parties, or an extra table on Thanksgiving day.  Either way, its versatile and built like a tank.

So here it is, ready to make any and all projects just a little less tedious, I hope anyway. =)