A long while ago I came across Ron Paulk‘s channel on YouTube and was impressed by some of his relatively simple design ideas, and decided I wanted some utility benches that were portable, easy to set up, and robust. Using his ideas I drew up my own plans in Sketchup and got cutting and assembling.
At the end of the day I did not make the wooden “horses”/stands that he had. I happened to have a couple of Stanley plastic folding horses and found they worked just great. I never got around to drilling all the holes in the top either, and generally just clamp to the upper edge of the open slots in the sides.
I particularly like being able to keep my tools “inside” the bench, and that the torsion elements of the bench keep everything square and aligned, even when I stand on it!
Next to my saw table bench, these are probably the most useful tools I have and use. I like them so much I made two more and gave one to Sarah’s partner and one to Jo’s husband. The only changes I made was to make them slightly deeper to give a little more space for tools.
Possible future additions:
- Paulk Smart Router Table (PSRT) [YouTube video]
- Paulk Smart Router Table Fence, old version of above but includes fence [YouTube video]
- other Paulk Smart items?!
Resources
- Ron Paulk bench introduction [YouTube video]
- Sketchup model of the work bench