Making Some Good Progress on the Lineman Workbench ~ Building the Top

I decided to enjoy a bit of my Friday building my Lineman Work bench that my son and I started a couple weeks ago. We got the size and height figured out and welded up some support brackets for the lower storage tray a few weeks ago. For just a couple hours of work we got a really good start.

I am really trying to make this whole bench out of old retired parts from the Powerlines we rebuild. Unfortunately we don’t use 6 foot long 5/8 inch all thread bolts or locking wheels that I will eventually put on. So I guess 90% will have to work...

We started working on constructing the table top itself. After cutting crossarms down to size, we laid them out on the garage floor, it’s already looking heavy. I was able to get 2 pieces per crossarm.

As you can see I left a couple of them longer to accommodate my vise. I really can’t wait to finally have a place for it. Instead of it just tipping over and moving all over the place when I try and use it.

Next my son @w-splatts drilled out all those crossarm pieces with an 13/16 bit. Each piece needed 4 holes drilled in them, well actually only 1 hole but the other 3 needed to be drill out to a larger size. That boy just kept drilling and drilling and finally they were all drilled out. There were 14 pieces so he had quite a few holes to drill.

Now it’s time to put all these pieces together with 4 - 6 foot long 5/8 inch all thread. This will be one beast of a table top for sure!!

With the help of some persuasion tools all the pieces of the table were slid/hammered onto the 4 all thread bolts.

I was thinking of using some “L” brackets to mount the table to the legs. But in order for legs to be super solid I would need 4 brackets on each leg. Instead I decided to use the lower frame we built a few weeks ago. Now I need to build another lower frame...

The legs should be very stable when attached to this frame at the top and bottom of the legs.

After squaring up the frame and centering it on the table top, it was time to drill some more holes. These holes will be for the mounting bolts that will hold the table top to the frame.

I drilled through the frame and into the table top in order to mark the holes. Then prop up the table top and finish drilling out those holes.

Now the fun part, getting the table top up on the frame. This table is frikken heavy!! So I tipped the table up on its side. Then stacked blocks under each side, tipping it back and forth. Then once I got enough blocks under it, I laid it over onto the legs/frame. Then lifted and slid it into place aligning all the bolt holes.

When this table it complete it will be have a metal top on half and a nice smooth wood top on the other half. So I can’t be having these big 5/8 bolts sticking up. I need to recess them into the table.

I used a chisel first to get the square washer to be level with the top but the bolt head itself sticks way up. This is gonna take forever!!

There are a dozen bolts holding the table top to the frame and chiseling these all out isn’t gonna be fun. I am beginning to think if I made a jig and got the right kind of router bit, my new router would make quick work of this.

So I will be heading to the store to find the right router bit tomorrow. Plus, I need to pick up a few more arms and dig through the scrap bin to find some more bolts, nuts, and washers. Then go take a look at a few hardware stores to find some heavy duty locking wheels to make this table portable.

In the end I want this table to be a mobile work station. With a metal top on one half, it can be used for welding and a smooth wood top on the other half for anything else. I plan on attaching a heavy duty 100 foot retractable extension cord and a couple power strips. Maybe a couple drawers, and place for my cordless tools and chargers, and whatever else I come up with as this project progresses. For now I’m gonna call it a day and a successful one at that. We made some really good progress.

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