After months of searching on Craigslist I was not able to find a 7+ foot workbench that was made of solid wood. I was getting increasingly frustrated so I began looking online for different plans to make my own.

Workbench Criteria:

7 to 8 ft long ~2ft deep

THICK wooden top (I wanted more for aesthetics than anything else)

Heavy Duty Construction ( I didn’t want to think twice about putting 500 pounds on it )

After a while of searching I found an excellent starting point in an old Family Handyman article. I referenced this article for all the steps on the construction of the base and tabletop with several modifications:

I wanted a 2×6 base mainly for looks but also because I intend to keep this workbench for my lifetime and want it to last at least that long.

I also added some shelving to the crossbars underneath because it should have been there from the start and I had some leftover lumber from my earlier garage shelving project.

I added a 45 degree chamfer on the table top since this is just pine and could otherwise be pretty easily marred on the corners.

Lastly I inset a T-square in the corner of the table because I had an extra one lying around and I thought it could be useful.

Cost Breakdown

Materials:

$61 — Lumber

$50 — Used Vise off of Craigslist (looked new to me)

$20 — Lag Bolts and Hardware

$5 — Consumables (Wood Glue)

FREE — 3″ Deck Screws — I had these leftover

FREE — L Square — I had an extra

Tools:

$50 — New Table Saw Blade

$56 — (3) 36″ Clamps

~$250 total mostly in new tools that I would have bought for something else. All in all I could not be happier with the result, it was just what I wanted and meets every one of my needs.

Bringing the lumber home

This little car has never carried so much lumber in its entire life. So many 2x4s but I made it all in one trip!

Constructing the workbench

The 2×6 base is complete here. The sawdust is starting to pile-up after ripping the one side of all the 2×4’s Starting the glue-up Glue up is almost done looking at the underside of the table top. This is the actual work-side of the table. Really starting to look like a tabletop now. At this point I was about to take a belt sander to it.

Adding the Finishing Touches

I inset a t-square adding the vice used a chamfer bit to get this finish looking good So much sawdust

Finished.