Workbench, part 3

Workbench progress.

Pocket hole screwing + gluing the table saw box on.

Those are Wen 4" pocket hole clamps. They just barely fit 2x4 pocket holes edge on like that. They help keep the 2x4s aligned while driving in the pocket hole screws. 

Adding edge banding to the shelves. Tiny $12 palm-sized iron works perfectly.

Needed some edge band trimmers, so printing those while I put the edge banding on

The edge band trimmers use M3 melt in inserts

Also did some of the M3 melt in inserts for CubeXY. Yes, that's still going to be a thing...eventually. Got to use one of the melt in insert soldering iron tips I turned awhile back. 

These work great. Found them on thingiverse.

Edge banding done, time to stain:

Factory edge=bad

I sanded them with 220 grit, wiped the dust off, cleaned them with mineral spirits, and then sealed them with stain primer. I stained the edges (banding) of the table saw shelf golden oak, but didn't bother staining the rest of it since it won't be visible. I stained the router shelf "golden pecan", however, it came out a lot redder than I was expecting. Lessons learned: The Varathane "premium" stain colors are NOT the same as the "classic" stain colors. The classic golden pecan doesn't have much red in it and is what I used for the base shelves. The premium golden pecan is actually very close to the classic "Ipswich Pine". Meh, luckily it's a workbench, and I'm already mixing a ton of wood tones, so it doesn't really matter. The edge banding didn't take the stain as much as the plywood. Also, factory edges, while straight, need to be cleaned up because the stain will accent the underlying grain.

While I had the printer going, I decided to use up some old shitty (Eryone brand, bleh) filament I had and print some wood working tools. 

♫ Part of a marking gauge, two mini sanding blocks,
and a set of center finding of guides ♫ (3rd day of Xmas)

Right angle clamp blocks, printed two sets ~800g

Time to install the table saw shelf:

Screwed on the table saw vacuum adapter

Clamped, then screwed down the shelf.

Looks good, very rigid

I won't be able to see the top surface, so I didn't bother filling in the screw holes. I installed the router shelf next: 

Left side of shelf. Center: The Mini-Motivator 

This was tricky. I drilled (normal sized, not the "HD" ones) pocket holes in the bottom of the left side of the shelf to screw to the left vertical 2x4s. There's a 3/16" thick spacer that has to go on the right side between the shelf and the horizontal 2x4, which I made by gluing together strips of 1/8" and 1/16" plywood. That shim is necessary because the left bandsaw pivot bearings mount to the top of that horizontal 2x4, and they need to be at a specific height. I used glue in all of the joints and used a ton of clamps to hold everything in place while I drove in the pocket hole screws. Leveling the shelf required a lot of unclamp-shift something-clamp-check level operations. Weirdly, while I was doing that, I realized that the shelf couldn't be clamped flush to the horizontal 2x4 in order to be level. 

Uh-oh...the shim needed shims.

The shelf ended up needing to be spaced about 1/16" lower at the back than the front. It was then that I checked level of the top of the horizontal 2x4: it was slanted. Hmm... re-measuring the back vertical 2x4 it was resting on showed that it was about 1/32" too long. Then I checked the CAD. Ugh, that same 2x4 was 1/32" too long. Didn't notice because it was such a small interference. 1/32+1/32 ... there's my extra 1/16". By this time, it was too late to fix because I'd already screwed it all together and the glue had partially set. So I used the handheld belt sander to sand down the top of the horizontal 2x4. 

Now it reads level. 

I also screwed on a few more horizontal 2x4s. These required a bit of fancy clamping, but all the joints came out good. 

A bunch of the horizontal 2x4s need notches cut in them. Some need to be re-sawn, which I'll need the table saw for, so I'm going to start refurbing that soon.