MMAW

It seems like I’ve been planning to build some work benches for almost as long as we’ve owned our house, but it’s only recently that I actually made the dream come true.

Why did it take so long? mostly because it took forever for me to actually tidy up enough down there to have a space to put them.

Now, some people would simply buy a flat packed set of shelves and put them together, but I decided that I wanted to build shelves, so that I could make them:

Very sturdy,
Just the right height for me,
Just the right depth for me (for easy reach to the shadowboard behind, but maximum work space), and
Optimal length for the space

The original plan had been to simply buy some 30x30x3mm SHS (square steel tube) and either use my old stick welder, or buy a nice new gassed\gasless MIG welder. Of course, if I’d wanted to make it a less painful experience, I would have bought new steel (possibly cut to length by the steel shop) and bought a MIG welder to do the job… however, I’m a tight arse, so in the end decided that rather than spend a heap of money on a decent welder (or more likely: spend a smaller amount of money on what would no doubt turn out to be a slightly crappy welder), I would just make do with my old stick welder.

Of course this may not have been to big an issue, had I just bought the 3mm thick steel tube, however around the same time, I found a pile of old steel next to an commercial waste bin, waiting to go to the rubbish tip, and decided that I’d convert this old steel into a new bench. I’m a scrounger, and this sort of thing appeals to me immensely on a fundamental level, not to mention the fact that it saved me the $250 that I would have spent on steel, plus it’s better for the environment to recycle the steel, rather than letting it just get thrown out.

Now, the scrounged steel sounds like a good idea, except that the steel I found was 50x25x1.6mm RHS. This is a decent section in terms of strength, however the 1.6mm thick steel was VERY difficult to weld with the stick welder, which I haven’t practised with in about 10 years, so there was a LOT of swearing, grinding, and re-welding, and no small number of holes blown in the steel. But, in the end, it all came together…

Here are some photos of the steel going from rubbish to bench. I think I spent about $160 on timber and decent epoxy paint, and that includes the shadowboard.

The Scrounged Steel: