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There's no heat or AC in my shop/garage, so over the winter nothing of substance got done and the garage served more as an extension to the refrigerator.  With warmer weather here the focus is on getting the garage cleared up and usable as a shop.  The bandsaw got casters, the tablesaw's casters got repaired, and small cabinet with a bunch of shallow drawers found at a thrift store was added for all my little tools.  It requires moving a lot of stuff out onto the driveway to work on the shop and then it started to rain - a lot.
During the monsoon I was playing around in my old 3D drawing program with an old idea for a 4 foot by 6 foot work-table on casters and I think I finally nailed a mechanism that will work.

 

There's a lot of folks here that suffer from work-area space issues and a need tools and tables to be mobile - so I thought I'd share this with you. 
A lot of it was inspired by a fellow on YouTube and this video:

 

Here's some images of the 3D model (drawn in free software called Anim8or)  Please pardon Posin' Paul, he's just there for scale.

 

With some internal bits removed so you can see; the brown arms are L iron from a bed frame.  The 6 casters are mounted on a 3/4" thick white pine board and levered against a strip of wood.  Lowering the end of the bed-frame sticking out of the right of the table, levers the wheels down and lifts the table an inch off the floor.  No hinges are used saving $20 at least.
The whole caster set-up will slide right out if you want to remove them for some reason.

post-961-0-26598600-1458246319_thumb.jpg  post-961-0-62024600-1458246319_thumb.jpg

 

The top is 4' x 6' with hardboard (Masonite) work surface that can be replaced if it gets too gnarly.

The body is basically two 5 foot by 21.5" boxes built of OSB (Oriented Strand Board) which is running about $12 for a 3/4" x 4' x 8' sheet.

The caster levers operate in a 2" gap between the boxes making the body 45" wide and 60" long.

A pair of drawers will go into one of the pigeon holes; a vice get mounted in one end, and electrical outlets will be installed on all four sides  There will probably be hooks and such on the ends to hang things.

The skirting around the base will have relief cut in (not show in pics) so the table will essentially have four feet to sit on; and the lever will have a latching system to hold it down in the deployed position.  The height of the table is designed for it to also act as an out-feed table for my table-saw.

post-961-0-92714100-1458246319_thumb.jpg  post-961-0-24058200-1458246320_thumb.jpg

 

Obviously a 4 x 6 table may be a bit much for some of you, but it's the caster set-up I'm mainly showing you here - which can be adapted to nearly any size bench or table, as shown in Carl's video above.

When I get to building this beast, I'll add it to this thread.

Click a pic to go to that build log

sig_flags.png stamp_stella.jpg stamp_mac.jpg stamp_pride.jpg stamp_gazela.jpg

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Very nice table. I'm fortunate to have a space for my model building in the house but in my very tiny wood shop, I use several similar setups to move tools and one of my benches in and out when more space is needed. I too have been there when I was racing the weather to get some work done and had several tools in the driveway when it started to downpour. I was thankful for wheels that day!

 

When I move to my new place I will have more room and just might try out your table design.

"A Smooth Sea NEVER made a Skilled Sailor"
- John George Hermanson 

-E.J.

 

Current Builds - Royal Louis - Mamoli

                    Royal Caroline - Panart

Completed - Wood - Le Soleil Royal - Sergal - Build Log & Gallery

                                           La Couronne - Corel - Build Log & Gallery

                                           Rattlesnake - Model Shipways, HMS Bounty - Constructo

                           Plastic - USS Constitution - Revel (twice), Cutty Sark.

Unfinished - Plastic - HMS Victory - Heller, Sea Witch.

Member : Nautical Research Guild

 

 

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