Wes’ Huge Shop Table

First I want to thank Marc for all of the awesome free materials he puts out! His generosity is very much appreciated and has benefited myself, as well as the rest of the woodworking community greatly!

Like many beginner woodworkers I started out with sawhorses and a sheet of MDF as my workspace. This served me well starting out but I found it to be too unstable for larger projects so I set out defining what my dream bench would look like. It had to have a large workspace that could serve not only as an assembly table, but also as an outfeed table. It had to be mobile as the weather here in Oklahoma is unpredictable at best, and since I don’t have a shop, I need to be able to get the cars in the garage when necessary. Lastly, it had to have storage so I could have all of my tools right there where I am working.

I tried to jam as many learning opportunities into this build as possible to expand my skill set. Thus I used biscuits for securing the face frame; I used hand tools to trim the face frames perfectly flush with the carcass; made cambered calls for laminating the plywood; I used mortise and tenons to attach the partitions to the base; I used sliding dovetails for the drawer joinery; and the list goes on. I learned a lot throughout this build–patience being the biggest lesson!

All of the plywood partitions and the bottom are made from doubled up 3/4″ maple plywood. I cut tenons into the bottom of all of them and cut matching mortises into the base. The partitions running the length of the bench fit into dadoes in the cross partitions. This serves as a torsion box style construction that adds strength since it will have to withstand being pushed around. The bottom sits on 8 heavy duty dual locking casters, it rolls quite easily despite how heavy it is. The drawers are also made of 3/4″ maple plywood except for the bottoms which are 1/2″ Sandply. I have found it to be more than sufficient for shop drawer applications. They are all trimmed in walnut inside and out. The pulls are also made of walnut and are chamfered to ease the edges. The top is a single sheet of plywood attached with screws. No glue was used on the top so if it ever needs to be replaced the base cabinet can be salvaged. Had I known I wasn’t going to have a laminated top like I had originally planned, I probably would have doubled up the plywood here as well.

Hope you all enjoy the pics. Thanks again Marc, for all that you do!