Husky Adjustable Height Workbench

[cteno4]

Know it’s over kill for many folks on the forum, but this experience opened my eyes to working a lot more comfortably and better with my mini bench tools and other craft tasks. Even though I’ve been into ergonomics forever on workplace stuff this one I had ignored in my own mini workshop!

 

So I needed a new workbench for my basement where I have all the small power tools (as opposed to the big stuff up in the garage woodshop) and I looked around at all sorts of options. I’ve made so many workbenches in my life either custom scratch build, out of other repurposed things, as well as regular buy it off the shelf ones, so lots of options. One thing I though would be nice to try is an adjustable height workbench. My first though was getting an adjustable height computer desk as my wife years ago got a fancy electric large adjustable height Desk for her home office paid for by her employer. Very nice, but just a tad wobbly for a Workbench and they can get expensive even for just a base system. Also at the woodworking shows each year there is a guy with a really awesome hardcore heavy duty adjustable height workbench, built like a tank but easy to use but like $1k price tag (http://adjustabench.com/articles.asp)! Ouch nope... then a friend saw this husky crank adjustable height workbench at home despot for like $200 on sale (around $230 normally) and said it was really solid. 

 

Well I went ahead a few months back and got one and it’s turned out to be great! It’s so solid you can dance on it, nice wheels to easily move around and two nice long drawers (like 40” long and one 16”deep and the other about 10” deep). One issue is for a few tasks the drawers put the bench top just a tad too high to get your knees under it, but the bottom drawer can just be removed if needed.

 

It adjusts from 26-39” high and the wheels add 3” in overall height if you use them. You can bolt the Bottom cross piece in the back to put rollaround storage and feet under it.

 

I was initially doing it for a workspace to just cut larger stuff on or work/project space at sitting or standing height and just adjust the height best for the current task. It does great at that, but recently I had the small drill press and band saw on it doing a project for my wife and was able to use the chair and just crank the workbench up to a very comfortable height to work at for each tool as needed! In the wood shop I have bases on all the big shop bench tools to put them at the usual optimal height for me to do work on, but I realized with the mini shop all these same smaller versions were on a single height bench that really was not right for any of them. That bench was made out of an old drawer base for a futon couch/bed I made in grad school decades ago (just bolted on some fold up legs on it and threw a hunk of plywood on top that was just the right size). Drawers were deep enough where I could not get knees under it using a tall stool to try to get to the right height to work at the mini power tools. I realize I was always twisting, crouching and otherwise torturing myself and probably not doing as good of work as I could and definitely not as comfortable at!

 

It’s opened my eyes to working with my mini power tools in a different way! I’m ditching the old futon base (was one of those reuses that worked easy and cheap but not great) and replacing it with another one of this! It’s so nice to adjust working height Based on the tool and project! Bigger stuff I want lower and smaller stuff usually higher to look closely at w.o crannying my neck and back in to get close!

 

I’ll eventually get a larger one for the woodshop as they main assembly/work bench as my big monster one (3.5’x7’) is too big and too low for a lot of projects and takes up a huge amount of floor space!

 

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-52-in-Adjustable-Height-Work-Table-with-2-Drawers-in-White-HOLT5202BJ2/311742117

 

cheers

 

jeff