Working The Bench

Yes, not long ago we did some work on the garage. But I wasn't quite finished. I wanted to add a few more finishing touches to the workbench.

One of the many benefits of my employment with a contractor is access to custom fabrication shops. We currently have three shops in Indianapolis, one of which is a sheet metal shop. I gave our shop superintendent a call and asked if he had any scrap that could work for my purposes. Luckily for me, he had a some spare sheets that would work well for me. What I wanted was a metal counter top for the workbench and a piece of metal to go behind it that I could use magnets on. There were a few sheets of thin gauge, white-painted metal the shop had leftover from another project. Our shop normally deals in 316L stainless steel, which isn't magnetic, but luckily this material is ferrous enough to hold magnets.

I had the shop cut the pieces to size and bend a lip on the front of the counter top piece to go over the nose of the workbench. I tacked that down with Liquid Nails and mounted the other to the wall with nails and some scrap wood. I still want to caulk around where the bench top meets the wall, but otherwise they're both installed and ready to go.

The metal on the workbench makes for a nice work surface. I still need to mount the bench vise to the workbench, but I'm not in a rush for that. The piece on the wall will be home to magnets (there's a little craft project involving custom magnets coming soon, but that's another post). I'll use these to hold recent receipts for tools / materials we buy for projects or any sketches or material lists I happen to scribble on scraps of paper. Think of it as one of those "idea boards" moms make, but less girly and more practical. I've already got my Milwaukee screw driver set for my drill on there (it has a magnetic back) and a magnetic parts bowl we picked up at Menards.

I've also got a little set of drawers for screws, wire nuts, and whatever other bits and pieces need organizing. On top of that are my battery chargers for my Milwaukee tools and Black + Decker yard tools. I also put up a kitchen knife holder to help corral more hand tools like extra screw drivers, wrenches, and a few others. So, while there are a few finishing touches to make, this brings the workbench area pretty well to completion. And I love it!

And that'll do it for this post. Thanks for reading and we'll be back soon!