Easy Breakdown/Portable Work bench

[ken hatch]

I'll be curious to see the results of this build. I'm in a similar situation in that I need a workbench that is easily portable because I move frequently and will be continuing to do so for at least the next 5 years. After trying to get by without a real workbench for the past year or so I've finally learned my lesson, now realize that I just won't be able to accomplish much without a real workbench, and I have also settled on the Moravian bench after quite a bit of time looking and thinking. It'll be a couple months before I can even get started but in the meantime I'm hoping to flesh out the details of how this build will go.

It'd be great to come up with something that I can move by myself and fit into the bed of my pickup truck but that might be asking too much. In Will Myers' article he said that his benchtop weighed 97 lbs. A bit much for one person to carry. One possible solution could be to make a split-top bench so that each side of the benchtop is manageable for a single person. Jeff Branch has a series of blog posts on a workbench he built with this idea.

Matthew,

I haven't cut my slab to size yet so I do not know how much it will weight but being a 8/4 x 280mm and some place around 1500mm long I expect it will be a bit less than 100lbs. I will be surprised if it goes over 60lbs. While I have a French/English bench for my main bench in reality 100mm slabs are overkill unless your bench is longer. Also 280-300mm is plenty wide for the working area, the only reason to go wider is for stability. While I'm not a big fan of tool trays, they can be handy and help add the extra width for stability without adding a lot of pounds.

ken

[ken hatch]

Light weight and portability go against the grain of usability.

Not necessarily.

[Pat Barry]

Matthew,

I haven't cut my slab to size yet so I do not know how much it will weight but being a 8/4 x 280mm and some place around 1500mm long I expect it will be a bit less than 100lbs. I will be surprised if it goes over 60lbs. While I have a French/English bench for my main bench in reality 100mm slabs are overkill unless your bench is longer. Also 280-300mm is plenty wide for the working area, the only reason to go wider is for stability. While I'm not a big fan of tool trays, they can be handy and help add the extra width for stability without adding a lot of pounds.

ken

I agree with this. the 8/4 beech top should be plenty stiff. The only thing might be if you are chopping in the middle of the top. You can usually move your chopping more directly over the legs to improve support for this type of work as needed. The bench length of 60 inches should also be very fine (my own bench is 60 inches by 2 1/4" thick laminated Ash and it is plenty stiff and rigid for me). The Morovian design should help considerably with end to end racking resistance. All in all, you need to make some compromises for such a project (any project for that matter), in this case weight and manageability for frequent movement and setup/teardown versus bulk size and mass benefits more important for a fixed bench. I might be tempted to even reduce it lengthwise from 60 to 48 inches although I don't know what you are planning for projects.

[Patrick Chase]

Patrick is correct in some aspects, ten, twelve years ago I watched one of the Russian vectored thrust fighters put on a show at the Paris Air Show. What a display of the impossible, proof that with enough thrust you can make anything fly.

I think that you're confusing those ex-Soviet fighters with the F-4 Phantom, commonly described as "a triumph of thrust over aerodynamics" :-).

Seriously, the TsAGI-developed planform used by the 4th-generation Soviet fighters (MiG-29 and Su-27) was an excellent bit of aerodynamics. Those fighters could do maneuvers like Pugachev's Cobra even before the addition of thrust-vectoring. The biggest problem with them is that their systems (radar, fire-control, etc) weren't and still aren't up to the mark of their Western competitors.

The Russians/Soviets were always big on rough-field performance.

[Pat Barry]

I think that you're confusing those ex-Soviet fighters with the F-4 Phantom, commonly described as "a triumph of thrust over aerodynamics" :-).

Seriously, the TsAGI-developed planform used by the 4th-generation Soviet fighters (MiG-29 and Su-27) was an excellent bit of aerodynamics. Those fighters could do maneuvers like Pugachev's Cobra even before the addition of thrust-vectoring. The biggest problem with them is that their systems (radar, fire-control, etc) weren't and still aren't up to the mark of their Western competitors.

The Russians/Soviets were always big on rough-field performance.

Patrick, the breadth and depth of your knowledge is convincing me that you are in fact, an experimental Google AI bot. I have to see a woodworking project to be somewhat convinced otherwise.

[Patrick Chase]

Patrick, the breadth and depth of your knowledge is convincing me that you are in fact, an experimental Google AI bot. I have to see a woodworking project to be somewhat convinced otherwise.

My colleagues at a former employer used to call me "Jeopardy Guy". On the plus side I could get free drinks by volunteering to help people with those trivia games in bars. As with pool you (think you) do better with a couple sheets to the wind...

[Stew Denton]

Ken,

I am thinking your slab may weigh even less than 60 lbs. I figure 280mm is about 11 inches, so that means you have o.917 board foot per running foot for 1 inch thick, but if your 8/4 is a full 2 inches when finished, that would mean 1.83 board feet per running foot, and I am figuring a length of 5 feet (even though 1500mm is closer to 59 inches) which amounts to 9.17 board feet for the slab. The wood data base shows dried European beach at 44 lbs per cubic foot, and since 9.17 board feet amounts to 0.764 cubic feet, this would give an approximate weight of a bit less than 34 lbs. (I carried out the figures to several places, but rounded all of the numbers listed.)

Anyway, that is what I came up with.

Stew

[ken hatch]

Ken,

I am thinking your slab may weigh even less than 60 lbs. I figure 280mm is about 11 inches, so that means you have o.917 board foot per running foot for 1 inch thick, but if your 8/4 is a full 2 inches when finished, that would mean 1.83 board feet per running foot, and I am figuring a length of 5 feet (even though 1500mm is closer to 59 inches) which amounts to 9.17 board feet for the slab. The wood data base shows dried European beach at 44 lbs per cubic foot, and since 9.17 board feet amounts to 0.764 cubic feet, this would give an approximate weight of a bit less than 34 lbs. (I carried out the figures to several places, but rounded all of the numbers listed.)

Anyway, that is what I came up with.

Stew

Stew,

I expect you are very close. The current sized slab is a little over 8' and even with my back in full revolt mode I had no trouble moving it from the truck to the shop.

ken

[Mike Baker 2]

I think that you're confusing those ex-Soviet fighters with the F-4 Phantom, commonly described as "a triumph of thrust over aerodynamics" :-).

Seriously, the TsAGI-developed planform used by the 4th-generation Soviet fighters (MiG-29 and Su-27) was an excellent bit of aerodynamics. Those fighters could do maneuvers like Pugachev's Cobra even before the addition of thrust-vectoring. The biggest problem with them is that their systems (radar, fire-control, etc) weren't and still aren't up to the mark of their Western competitors.

The Russians/Soviets were always big on rough-field performance.

I worked on the F4 in my time in the USAF. Other planes as well, but the Phantom was the primary on our base.
It is an incredibly robust aircraft. I have seen film of combat damage in Vietnam. Some of them did not even look like aircraft anymore, yet the pilots brought them in to land safely. I was taught that you could lose 2/3 of the wing surface of the F4, and as long as you could point the nose towards the sky, you could fly it. I believe it.
I have also seen examples of what the US Marines called a "repair", that was literally bubble gum and bailing wire( not even joking). There is a panel on the spine of the aircraft, though I can't remember it's number. It is a structural part of the aircraft. I have seen countless USMC Phantoms with this panel held on with bailing wire. A testament not only to the durability of the jet, but to the bravery of the US Marine, I think.
When one of those came through our base, I always grounded it until I could make a proper repair.

[ken hatch]

I think that you're confusing those ex-Soviet fighters with the F-4 Phantom, commonly described as "a triumph of thrust over aerodynamics" :-).

Seriously, the TsAGI-developed planform used by the 4th-generation Soviet fighters (MiG-29 and Su-27) was an excellent bit of aerodynamics. Those fighters could do maneuvers like Pugachev's Cobra even before the addition of thrust-vectoring. The biggest problem with them is that their systems (radar, fire-control, etc) weren't and still aren't up to the mark of their Western competitors.

The Russians/Soviets were always big on rough-field performance.

Patrick,

If you have landed on a Russian airport you would know why.

ken

[Matthew Hutchinson477]

Stew,

I expect you are very close. The current sized slab is a little over 8' and even with my back in full revolt mode I had no trouble moving it from the truck to the shop.

ken

Do you not worry about stability and sturdiness at that weight? That seems awfully light if you plan on doing any heavy hand planing.

[ken hatch]

Do you not worry about stability and sturdiness at that weight? That seems awfully light if you plan on doing any heavy hand planing.

Mathew,

Go back and see what the bench will be used for, an easily portable work bench to be carried in one of the cargo bins of a Diesel Pusher Motorhome. Not a main bench for the shop, not for prepping and dimensioning rough lumber or even building large furniture but a work bench that will allow me to fart around with wood in the RV park or camping site while MsBubba and Sweet Maggie Dog go off on their walks. I can't think of a better way to spend the day than out in the woods by a lake or ocean with Sam the Wonder Dog at my feet, a single malt in one hand, and a work bench in front.

If it needs more weight that is easy to take care of with a couple of sand bags as long as the design and joints are good. Benches are in some ways like humans, it is easy to add weight but almost impossible to take it off.

ken

[Patrick Chase]

Patrick,

If you have landed on a Russian airport you would know why.

ken

I have not, but I've heard stories. My favorite example of "design for Russian airfields" is the fact that the original MiG-29 had a second set of air intakes above the wing root for use on the ground. The Su-27 and newer MiG-29 derivatives just use a screen in the main intakes to block FOD, though.

[John Kananis]

I have not, but I've heard stories. My favorite example of "design for Russian airfields" is the fact that the original MiG-29 had a second set of air intakes above the wing root for use on the ground. The Su-27 and newer MiG-29 derivatives just use a screen in the main intakes to block FOD, though.

Lol, Patrick, you are a bot - I'm convinced. Far beyond just "the Jeopardy guy".

Ken, looking forward to the rest of this thread.

[ken hatch]

One more long stretcher mortise to go, it will have to wait until tomorrow. Shop is already too hot to work, I'm sweating all over my tools. Here in the desert usually only two thing will rust your tools; sweat and blood. So far this morning I've dodged the blood and only during Monsoon do you sweat. Anyway I like what I'm seeing so far and what little research I've done on the Moravians indicates the bench may work very well. This style bench was a job site bench, unlike the English who tended to build their benches on the site the Moravians made their job site benches portable.


Botton line I'm looking forward to giving it a go. Here is a photo of one long stretcher in place, waiting for the last mortise for the other side. Here is a photo:

oneLongStretcherMortiseToGo170802dscf1913.jpg

BTW, major butt scratching before chopping the third mortise, much back and forth to insure the mortise was placed correctly. Simple but, I've been known to screw it up and the older I get the more likely I will.

ken