The Interchangeable Woodwork Bench With Electric Power

One work bench is never enough, I had enough reclaimed notty pine to hack together a simple tabletop and some spare 2x4 chunks. This isn't a how-to on making a bench but more of an inspirational piece for others hopefully. I was inspired by a pic I had seen in another inst'ble Someone had a miter saw in the background and built platforms on their bench to support the lumber even with the bed of the saw. I thought 'why not sink the saw rather than raise the table?'

So I removed the planks on my bench, trimmed them so I had a width enough for my saw to fit down into the table. Built a bottom for the saw to set on and made sure the bed of the saw was flush with the top of the workbench. The saw can come out and be stowed out of the way.

Now that there was a recess, it needed a cover to make the bench one surface again... and since it would be removable, I made the cover double as a router table too. All that was needed would be a secure way to fasten the router to the underside but enable it to easily be removed for hand work. I traced my routers' base on the cover, glued two blocks at near right angles along the traced line, so that the round router base would nestle into place. Another longer board acts as a swing arm on the opposite side to clamp the router firmly against the other glued blocks. A beveled bit of lumber wedges the router tightly to the underside of the cover plate. A simple bungee is all that is needed to keep the contraption snug.

The workbench is electric! I know, you'd never see this in the woodwright shop, but my bench plugs in like a lamp. I wired a n outlet under the bench and is controlled by a switch. This is so that my shopvac dust collector runs at the flip of a switch and my saw and router can as well. flip a switch and the saw can work or router starts spinning, with the vacuum starting at the same time.