For years I’ve thought about a garage workbench setup but it was never a practical option. Since moving into my current home the opportunity has been there but it was never a priority. Thankfully my wife decided it was time my 3d printers and cnc were moved out of our shared office space. This was the perfect opportunity to commit to a garage workspace!
The first step was to clear out some space. This mostly meant shuffling around moving boxes and gym equipment.
Next I measured up the area I had and found a workbench design I liked. Check out the build instructions from the designer here. I needed to modify the design to suite my space and the wood I had easily available so I made a parametric fusion 360 model. I’ll share it if people are interested.
I ordered my wood from B&Q but it is essentially just some 2×3″ CLS timber and 18mm plywood which will be commonly available at most builders merchants or DIY stores. I used opticutter to layout my cuts so I could have as little waste wood as possible.
I decided to build one complete workbench frame before cutting everything so that I was confident I wouldn’t be wasting a load of wood! The be ch wasn’t really sturdy at this point but as I knew the tops and shelf would add a lot of rigidity I was happy with the result and therefore moved into the next 2.
After I’d built all the frames I dropped the worktops (pre cut to size at B&Q) onto the benches just to check everything fit. I then glued and nailed the worktops in place.
Once the worktops were in I spent quite a lot of time levelling the benches. I purchased some adjustable feet from amazon and used a spirit level to get them level. At this point I was very happy with how the benches looked but I wanted a cleaner look along the left hand wall.
A quick trip to ikea and I had 6 peg boards ready for loads of tools and storage options. I had to use some wooden batons with spacers behind them because the garage wall was too bent and wonky for the supplied brackets. It was worth the extra effort though because the end result was very neat.
Overall I’d recommend those with the space to try this design. It’s pretty cheap (£300 for the 3 workbenches) and doesn’t require specialist tools. The last thing I did was add some screws fixing the benches together which has left me with a really sturdy set of workbenches.
3DP and Me 