Fabrication Station Tower From Gridbeam

There comes a time when you look around and wonder why do I have to play musical benchtop anytime I want to make something?

My wife and I finally reached this point with our space and decided to do something about it. Looking for a way to better maximize our vertical space, we decided to stack everything into a tower. We also thought it would be a good chance to try out gridbeam since the system's reconfigurability would be a big plus here. Gridbeam is essentially a wooden Erector set with a hole spacing of 1.5" along its entire length in both directions perpendicular to the length of the beam. 40 mm spaced gridbeam is also a thing and is compatible with OpenStructures for those of you in more enlightened lands.

Tower Parts:

1. 10 - 2x2x8 boards
2. 3 - 2x4x3/4 plywood sheets (or 1 - 4x8x3/4 sheet)
3. 60 - binding screws (1/4"-20, 1.575" Thread Length, 2.756" Long)
4. 60 - binding nuts (1/4"-20, 0.669" Long)

Tools:

1. Drill press or CNC
2. Circular or hand saw (miter saw or table saw can be helpful too, but are optional)
3. Kreg Rip-Cut saw guide (optional, but handy for cutting sheet with a circular saw)
4. 5/16" drill bit for holes in work holding jig
5. 3/8" drill bit for drilling gridbeam holes (high speed steel type if using the CNC)
6. 3/8" collet for CNC (not needed if using drill press; we use ER20 collets in the one at our makerspace)
7. 120 grit sandpaper (power sander is a plus, but optional)

CNC work holding parts

1. 1.5x1.5x8 aluminum L channel
2. 1x8x8 MDF board
3. 4 - 1/4" tee nuts
4. 4 - 1/4" bolts long enough to go through work holding clamps
5. screws

We started by looking at what tools we wanted to consolidate onto the tower and then took all of their measurements. Be a little generous with this to allow a little wiggle room later on. Ideally, you can take exact measurements and then round up for the next part, but a lot will depend on your own building style. After we had the measurements, we found none of our tools had a footprint bigger than 2' x 2' when not in operation, so we could go with that for our shelf size which keeps things an easily divisible unit of a sheet of plywood.

With 9' ceilings in our workspace, we decided an 8' tower with a top shelf would still let us use most of the space without having to deal with cutting down (or finding) 10' 2x2s. Horizontal supports of 27" in one direction and 24" the other bolted to the 8' uprights would let us slot 2x2 sheets of plywood without having to notch corners like in some gridbeam designs.

For the five shelves we planned, we ended up needing:

1. 4 - 8' beams
2. 10 - 27" beams
3. 10 - 24" beams
4. 5 - 2' x 2' plywood shelves

Gridbeam was designed to be simple to manufacture with easy to obtain tools, so you can pop a stick into a drill press and then sand the beams and you've got what you need. I have access to a CNC at the local makerspace and decided I would learn a new toy tool and over-complicate the matter though. I would've likely finished this project a month sooner if I had just gone the traditional route.

The first thing I did with the help of the makerspace staff was do a quick test with the tools on hand to make sure that using our CNC as a drill wasn't a totally off-base idea. I drilled the two end sets of holes (4 total) on the drill press, bolted the beam onto the table, and we clamped some blocks to the side to try to minimize any movement of the board. Since they'd only used it for milling before, we were only able to drill halfway through with the milling bit, but it was enough to see if the machine seemed OK with the idea.

Taking the beam home, I measured the deviation from center and looked over the holes carefully. I very nearly aborted the CNC route due to the holes being so ovoid and not staying centered along the length of the beam. A little more research on CNC work holding and a talk with another user of our machine led to a possible solution, especially once I found CNC-specific high speed steel drill bits.

Mounting a piece of aluminum L channel along one side of an MDF board with holes going all the way through the jig, I was able to provide a robust fence to press the boards against while drilling. Some cuttoffs from the scrap bin had just the right profile to cup over the edge of the future gridbeam from the other side, preventing side-to-side or vertical motion. Longer MDF blocks screwed into the surface of the work holding jig further helped prevent side-to-side motion of the board.

With the jig bolted down to the table, we were ready to drill some holes after about a month of iteration on the work holding. As with other digital fabrication techniques, it turns out we're quite a ways away from hit a button and out pops the thing from CAD!

Once the work holding was situated, drilling the beams was mostly uneventful, albeit still time consuming. Regardless of if you're using a CNC or drill press to drill the holes, make sure you're following all the safety rules appropriate to that device like wearing safety glasses and a dust mask and keeping things away from the spinny bits.

I hit one more snag before success, however, as I neglected to follow the age-old advice of measuring twice and cutting drilling once. While I did use a similar type of hardware to that suggested by How to Build with Gridbeam, I did not, in fact, double-check that it was exactly the same. Luckily, I had only drilled three beams with a 5/16" bit when I thought to check that the beams would fit together as expected. It turned out that while I was using 1/4" bolts and nuts as the authors had, my binding barrels were a bit bigger around than their weld nuts and they would not sit inside 5/16" holes.

Before ordering yet another collet and drill bit, I grabbed the cordless drill, popped a couple 3/8" holes in the beams and confirmed that the nuts would fit in a 3/8" hole. Lesson learned! As a bonus, drilling out 5/16" holes to 3/8" works a lot better than trying to do it the other way.

Mistakes, tests, and all, I estimate I drilled around 1,800 holes for this project. If you avoid some of my mistakes, you only need about 1,200.

After drilling the holes in the beams, I looked over the beams and chose the four straightest for the uprights. Mindful of other damage such as blow outs or cracks, I marked the others for cutting into 24" and 27" sections. The miter saw in the makerspace made short work of that. Then it was time for everyone's favorite part of any project - sanding!

I used 120 grit sandpaper for the uprights which seemed aggressive enough to knock of any large splinters and left a smooth enough finish for a practical item that's going into service without any paint or stain. You might want to us a multi-step process or something finer if you really love sanding.

While it would've been cheaper to get a full 4x8 sheet for the plywood shelves, I didn't have a good way to carry it or break it down in the lot that day, so I went with the much easier to transport 2x4 sheets which I ripped in half using my circular saw and a Kreg Rip-Cut guide. The guide is definitely a tool you should practice with before using, as while it is simple in theory, there is a bit of a knack to getting it to cut exactly where you'd like.

Assembly is the easiest part of the whole process with gridbeam, especially if you kept all your planning documentation. Just mark on the beams where you need your shelves and bolt everything together. Three beams to a corner makes a tri-joint which is the primary connection method for the system. I was a little apprehensive about whether gridbeam was going to work out as partway through assembly things didn't feel particularly sturdy, but once you tighten all the bolts down things are pretty solid. There is a little flex, but quite a bit less than the adjustable shelving units you might get for home use at the hardware store.

I availed myself of the adjustability of the system shortly after we assembled the tower as for whatever reason, we had a measurement wrong and needed to move one of the shelves up by one hole. Of course, it was the very top shelf, so I needed a ladder to do it, but it was otherwise pretty straightforward to make the adjustment. It sure beat having to completely disassemble the whole thing. I also have a picture above of the partially-removed front piece from the top of the 3D printer shelf. I had to pull it back out to slide the printer into its home, but it won't interfere with the printer now that it is inside.

This may also be the only time I've griped about wood being over its nominal dimensions as the plywood was a little over 2' wide, so getting the shelves in was a bit of a squeeze. The 4' dimension was also big, so the ripped direction was still a hair big, even accounting for the kerf. If I do another of these, I'll probably rough sand the edged down of the ply to get it where I want it, but we were in a hurry to just get it done after waiting so long, so we coaxed the shelves in with a combination of brute force and not completely tightening all the bolts until the shelves were in place.

Another advantage of having holes up and down every pole is that it's easy to bolt panels to the outside. Our pegboard yarn wall bolted right up to the side to keep things in easy reach over the futon. Since pegboard is a 1" grid, not every hole will line up, but there are still plenty to choose from for a secure connection.

After going through the whole process, I'm glad I went the CNC way, because it is going to be pretty quick and easy to make more projects with gridbeam now that I have a jig to cut it on the CNC. It still would've been totally worth it to make the gridbeam on a drill press though, and I probably would've been finished a month sooner too, so don't feel like the CNC is remotely necessary to do this. I'm already planning some more shelves and other furniture since it worked out so well, although I should probably finish plugging all these machines back in before I get too carried away!