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A CLEANING BENCHAs of late it seems I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time cleaning tools. This is almost always dirty work, regardless whether your choice is electrolysis or citric acid, steel wool and wd-40, or what. It makes a mess! Although every horizontal area in my shop including the concrete floor has been stained by this activity already, I’ve decided to build a mobile cleaning station to contain this entire messy process. Design considerations
Enough planning lets build something…I’ve got these 4” x 6” x 8’ long Southern Yellow Pine beams that can donate the lumber. I will defer at this point to my heritage of power tool woodworking and use my table saw to rough-cut my lumber. Taking a beam, that had already been cut on once, I cut what was left into a couple of pieces 1 7/8” x 2 3/4” x 80” out of which I cut 4 legs 35 5/8” long (go figure). Found a pressure treated board that had been the trim off of the center board in my trailer’s new floor 2” x 3 7/8” x 10’. This became two side stretchers 39 ¾” long. Okay we got 4 legs and 2 stretchers so lets put them together with a mortise and tenon joint. (Sorry no pictures here) That done, I whack up another piece of pine to get end pieces. These are 2 ½” tall x 1 ¼” thick X 19 ¾” long. This will give me 16” between the legs which is a little more than I need for my plastic tub. I decided to use a dovetail joint to attach these to form a very rigid end assembly.
Here they are, the fit isn’t that great but they are strong and very rigid. Below is a close-up of one of the pegged mortise and tenon joints and a picture of the end assembly.
I decided to use particle board for the enclosure around and under my top cleaning tub; it will take a lot of wetting before it has to be replaced.
I attached a ledge with screws to the backside of the upper end stretcher to support the ends of the bottom and just screwed the sides into the inside of the side stretchers. I want this inner box to be easily replaced when ruined. I’ll have to remove a dozen or so screws and pull it out to replace it. Another consideration at this point is that at some point down the road I will probably no longer use this bench for cleaning tools. Hopefully I will have acquired all my old woodworking tools to work with. At that point I would like to be able to remove everything but the side stretchers and end assemblies and convert it to another use. So I want the rest of the structure of this bench to be easily disassembled. So the rest of the assembly will be screwed together. Here you can see I have mocked up the upper and lower supports for the lower assembly.
Here you can see the three containers I use for tool cleaning, along with how the bottom section will be divided. At this point I decided that I would enclose the bench on three sides with frame and panel, sides and back. These would be decorative but would in the case of the back also serve to help locate the inner structure. This is the upper side pieces in progress. The rail and stiles are 1 ½” x ¾” with a 3/8” x ½” rabbet, to accept the 3/8” thick plywood panel.
With the rear and side panels attached and the top assembly installed.
With a bottom installed and the rear panel on I cut a 2” x 4” for a top and bottom stretcher and then cut uprights to fit. Then I cut a piece of ½” plywood to help tie the structure together. This creates the divider between the two sections of the bottom. I went ahead and mounted the casters on the bottom of the cabinet temporarily. I will build the kickdown casters at a later time. I also need to blow it all apart and clean it all up. Sanding and rounding edges etc. But I now have a cleaning station.
I will add shelves as needed.
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