Out-feed Table/Workbench Build (Part 1)

Written By Zachary Miller

Over the past few years I have slowly been building new additions to my workshop. As skill has increased and my tool loadout has grown larger, I have built multiple iterations of my work surfaces. With this workbench I sought to make something that would outlive this shop and be worthy of bringing into my future spaces.

A few months ago I scored an old school woodworking vise off OfferUp for $30 that I spent a few days buffing back to life. I designed the workbench with the idea of incorporating the vise into the new piece.

Although I built this bench with just a very rough sketch and these couple of ideas, I utilized videos from both Tamar over at 3x3 Customs and Jason at Bourbon Moth (videos tagged below) as well as some inspiration from Scott Brown’s Workbench.

I tried to build this thing rugged but cheap.

The lumber used was a mixture of a few different species, one of my few regrets in this project but I will discuss that more at the end. The majority of the project was built from some Ponderosa Pine I had kicking around the shop that I got real cheap off a local millhand in Ridgefield, WA. This lumber was real thick, almost a true 8/4 (2”) thick in some pieces. After cutting to rough dimensions, I glued these together with the goal of getting some thick stock I could use for the legs of the table. All cutoffs of the Ponderosa Pine I kept close by for later use. All the stretchers and skirts were made of simple KD Doug Fir 2x4’s that I milled to have clean dimensions to make the joinery. The middle shelf is 3/4” Birch Ply that was laid into slots cut in the stretchers. The bottom shelf was built the same but with 1/2” Birch Ply. The main purpose of the bottom shelf was to give an even surface to attach cabinetry inserts into later. The image on the right shows the frame after assembly.

The joinery used in the legs for the stretchers was a sort of half-lap that I achieved with a simple router jig and a templating bit. The skirts were attached in a similar style to the legs but were put on the outer faces of the legs in order to attach the vise. Notches for the vise can be seen on the image on the right. In addition to glue, I used 3” Structural Screws to add structural integrity to the joinery - some of these can be seen in the image provided. They were later plugged to hide the fasteners. As mentioned above, the plywood sits on rabbets that were cut into two of the short and one of the long stretchers. This gave just enough room to slide the plywood in the groove left in those halflaps on the legs. I provided a video below to show these pieces of ply going into place. On the remaining stretcher, I later attached a cleat to hold the ply flush. To hold the sheets of ply flush to their stretchers I added pocket screws to all sides of the ply.

The next big part to work on was the table top itself. This I made from 3/4” MDF and glued cutoffs to thicken the edges to 1-1/2” (except on the vise side). I then edge banded all sides of the tabletop with 1/8” Hard Maple. Although not pictured, I also built a quick layout jig that allowed me to center a series of holes in the tabletop. I drilled 1-1/8” holes with a forstner bit and glued cutoffs of the same diameter Birch dowels into each hole then flush-cut and sanded them smooth. I will come back to these at the end of this section.

Formica Laminate was attached to the tabletop using DAP contact cement to the instructions provided on the product. This included keeping my shop to a temperature of over 65°F for a few days - a feat in the middle of December in Portland, OR. After the laminate had adhered properly I cut the edges to final size using a 1/8” roundover bit on my trim router. I attached the tabletop with pocket screws. Just like that, the tabletop was more or less finished.

One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is how I actually connected the vise to the table top. In the middle picture below you may see I had to notch out a section in the edge banding in order for the vise to sit flush. I did this after attaching the tabletop in order to properly line everything up. Not pictured in a second stretcher below the tabletop that I added threaded inserts into the support the back of the vise. It was a simple piece of 2x4” Doug Fir that I attached flush to the joining stretchers with pocket screws and glue. This 2x4 was old growth and very dense. I would recommend something dense to attach the back section of the vise.

Additionally, I used that same layout jig for the 1-1/8” holes to line-up some 3/4” in each of the dowels. I drilled through the workbench then used the same roundover bit to smooth out the edges. These will be my dog holes. I was worried that 3/4” MDF wouldn’t hold up to shear force over time so I reinforced with the hardwood birch dowels. I had some issues with this task which I discuss at the end.

The next part of the build I coined “Phase 2” and has not been finished as of yet. The basic idea of Phase 2 is to add the storage and cabinetry to the bottom shelf of the bench. Putting that 1/2” sheet of Ply as the bottom shelf helped in this process immensely. It gave a flat, consistent surface to attach all my dividers easily with pocket screws.

The first step was to add the dividers between the cubbies that I had conceptualized. I started with one “side” of the table and will later work on the others. One of these cubbies incorporated some drawers that had been built but unused from another project. They were very wide (~36”) which I do not recommend - something I will touch on a little more at the end. Using a mixture of pre-finished and unfinished 1/2” Birch Ply and pocket screws to attach them all, I slowly added dividers throughout the bottom shelf.

Next, I had to figure out some spacing/shimming of the drawer slides in order to get all the drawers into the same cubby - this can be seen in some of the provided pictures. The idea was to add two cubbies for drawers then a final cubby for my compressor where I can insulate for sound while getting it off the shop floor.

In addition, I added some stiles/edgebanding to the face edges of plywood dividing the sections. These stiles were made of the same Ponderosa Pine that made up the workbench legs and will sit flush with the drawer faces I attach later.

Although, at this point I’m still in the middle of “Phase 2”, I moved on to “Phase 3” on this side of the table: finishing.

This section of the build was pretty much “plug and play”. I goal was to make shaker style drawer faces. I started by milling up a good portion of my extra Ponderosa Pine into usable lengths and thickness. After milling up my stock I was able to just move through each cubby and drawer, cutting each section of rails and stiles for my drawer faces. The panels I used 1/2” MDF that I pre-painted before final assembly.

As seen in the images below, I ran out of stock to make the door for the compressor cubby. The drawers still need pulls, final adjustments, and a clear coat but are otherwise finished.

Words of “wisdom” - in bullet-point form:

  • I sought to build this cheap. In the end, it has been far from “cheap”. Although I’ve used a good amount of lumber and hardware I already had sitting around the shop, altogether I’ve spent upwards of $500 on this bench so far. This includes laminate, adhesives, hardware, plywood, lumber, etc.

  • The dowels. When I went to drill the 3/4” dog holes in the laminate, the bit began to quickly dull due to the MDF. A couple of the last few dowels popped out of the MDF and left a big 1-1/8” holes in the top. It’s not a huge deal, I will make special dogs for these specific holes. I recommend supporting the underside of the benchtop when drilling these yourself.

  • I technically have four different “finishes” going on in this project, which I find a little loud. I have the ponderosa pine, maple, black (laminate and paint), then the Doug Fir 2x4’s. If I were to do it again I would change the stretchers to the same as the leg material. The other option is to paint them black but I don’t think I care enough - it’s a shop project!

  • The drawers on the far right are little too wide. No matter how much I’ve played with them, they get a little skewed halfway through closing them. I believe this is because they are too wide and need a middle runner in order to keep the drawer parallel to the slides. Unfortunately, I don’t think I have enough space between the drawers to add something like this.

  • I don’t recommend doing shaker style drawer faces one side mount drawer slides unless you have special clamps to adhere the faces. They were the most finicky part of the build and took a long while to get evenly spaced.

Inspirational videos:

Tools used (the “big” ones):

  • Table Saw - Craftsman 113 from the early ‘90s

  • Dewalt 735 Planer

  • Kreg Pocket Hole Jig

  • Makita Trim Router

  • Makita Miter/Chop Saw

to be continued…

Zachary Miller