I stumbled onto Lumberjocks while looking for inspiration to build a Tablesaw Workstation, something I’ve been meaning to do for 15 years or so. I have a Powermatic 64 Artisan saw and it has been on the original metal stand since I bought it. I added a router table to the right extension wing and put casters under it to supposedly make it easy to move around the shop (garage) but the weight of the router table made it seriously off balance and moving it often was a struggle.
So I set out to build an improvement and finally settled on the plan available from plansnow.com and originally published in Shopnotes #89. Construction began about a month ago and now I have completed the basic cabinet and base and moved the saw/router table to the new workstation. I have yet to make the doors and drawers and the new top. I considered just keeping the existing top but I really want to replace the left side cast iron finger crusher and as long as I’m at it I figure I might as well do it up right.
Here’s a pic of what it looks like right now. I made the front and rear pieces of the base 6” longer than the plan calls for so I could add two cross pieces outboard of the cabinets for casters. I aslo made the cabinets 5” taller than the plan dimension to bring the top to a more comfortable height for me.
-- John
6 comments so far
ChesapeakeBob
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99 posts in 383 days
posted 60 days ago
Looks like a great work station!
-- Chesapeake Bob, Southern Maryland
Scott Bryan
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20805 posts in 722 days
posted 60 days ago
John, this looks really good. This is a nice addition to your shop.
-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.
Innovator
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3125 posts in 313 days
posted 60 days ago
Nice setup John.
Everything within reach.
Rob
-- Whether You Think You Can or You Think You Can't, YOU ARE RIGHT!!!
Alan S
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4 posts in 217 days
posted 30 days ago
How do the casters work in relation with the adjustable feet shown in the photo on the front of the base? Are they locking casters? It looks great so far!
Alan
JohninSD
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22 posts in 61 days
posted 29 days ago
Alan;
The levelers are about 1/4”-3/8” off the floor when fully retracted – they retract with an allen wrench. The casters do have locking brakes but they can still swivel with the brake engaged. Limited experience so far suggests that using the levelers is not usually necessary – the workstation stays in place well even without locking the casters. These are cheap (~$5 each) casters and maybe that’s an advantage in this application – they don’t roll easily. Since I don’t plan to ever remove this workstation from my garage they don’t need to roll easily. All 4 casters swivel so I can move it in any direction. I put the casters where they are so that they are accessible if I ever need to change them – I didn’t want them underneath the ~700 lbs. of workstation/tools. This way I can just extend the levelers to take the weight and then remove the lag bolts that hold the crosspieces and lift them off with the casters. I found some really nice heavy duty casters that include a built in leveling foot – but they’re $100 each so that’s not going to happen – this setup works fine for now.
John
-- John
a1Jim
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17211 posts in 477 days
posted 29 days ago
Looking good john
-- Jim from Heirloom Woodshop, custom furniture ,maker, woodworking school, heirloomwoodshop.com