Whats your Work-Bench/lab look like? Post some pictures of your Lab.

[TerraHertz]

Each leg is welded along all (4) mated edges; the welds will never fail.

True, because what would actually fail is the 2mm steel they are attached to. Levers are great, except when they do what you don't want.

I can't remember how many times I used the red clamp before the swiveling foot broke off; I've owned that clamp for ~15 years.

Here's the type I thought it was:

[Cubdriver]

Assuming the welds have proper fusion, which I have every reason to believe they do, the table will last just fine forever. That said, cross braces would inhibit the ability for any flexing to occur, but for an electronics table you would not expect this, it's not as if you'll be rebuilding engines or something on top of it.

I dunno - I have some older HP test gear that is many things, but light in weight is definitely NOT one of them.  Stack a few of them up and before you know it you've got some serious mass piled up...

It is a nice looking bench.

-Pat

[tautech]

Hello everyone. I was just wondering if anyone here has ever built a workbench or desk using black pipe with floor flanges and t-joints as legs? How stable was it when completed? Did it have any wobble to it at all? How about when you leaned on it?

Not sure how loose the T joints will be, are they clamp type or grubscrew?
You could maybe add 2 diagonals at rear and underneath using scaffolding clamps, that would stiffen it up.

[cvriv]

There will be no welding. The floor flanges and t-joints and all threaded. Everything just screws together. The flanges are going to be bolted to the surfaces with .25" bolts and t-nuts embedded in the surfaces.

[cvriv]

Ok, ill look into stiffening up the pipes. Or maybe ill just make wooden legs like ive always done. Ehhhh.

[tautech]

There will be no welding. The floor flanges and t-joints and all threaded. Everything just screws together. The flanges are going to be bolted to the surfaces with .25" bolts and t-nuts embedded in the surfaces.

Ahh threaded fittings. 

You didn't state dimensions, for a long bench it might still have some wobble. 
Bolting it down will definitely help stability.
Add diagonals IF required.

[cvriv]

There will be no welding. The floor flanges and t-joints and all threaded. Everything just screws together. The flanges are going to be bolted to the surfaces with .25" bolts and t-nuts embedded in the surfaces.

Ahh threaded fittings. 

You didn't state dimensions, for a long bench it might still have some wobble. 
Bolting it down will definitely help stability.
Add diagonals IF required.

The PDF I uploaded has all the dimensions. The desk is 7' long. The longest pipe, parallel with the length of the desk, is 75" long. I'm going to do some more work with the design. Might be better to just use wood with everything. Cheaper too.

[GK]

Each leg is welded along all (4) mated edges; the welds will never fail.

True, because what would actually fail is the 2mm steel they are attached to. Levers are great, except when they do what you don't want.

There is no way in a million years that 30mm RHS will give out save for fork-lifting a car on top of the table.

[fivefish]

I was just wondering if anyone here has ever built a workbench or desk using black pipe with floor flanges and t-joints as legs? How stable was it when completed? Did it have any wobble to it at all? How about when you leaned on it?

My dream bench will be an all aluminum 80/20 setup. No need for welding, just screwed together. "Industrial Erector Set"
https://8020.net/gallery

[cvriv]

I was just wondering if anyone here has ever built a workbench or desk using black pipe with floor flanges and t-joints as legs? How stable was it when completed? Did it have any wobble to it at all? How about when you leaned on it?

My dream bench will be an all aluminum 80/20 setup. No need for welding, just screwed together. "Industrial Erector Set"
https://8020.net/gallery

I have a thing for building all my own stuff. I could post some stuff that I built just a bit ago. I built a desk for my audio workstation and a queen size bed frame. I love building stuff, especially unique stuff.

I know exactly what I'm going to do with my EE work bench. It just hit.... It's going to be awesome.

[jc101]

I've recently had an office / workshop built at the end of the garden.  It's not very big but a huge increase in space over what is available inside the house.  The other half is pleased to have regained her study (worktops, cupboards, and floor), living room table, and lost a random collection of boxes hidden away where I could find space.  The reflow oven, hidden under the RS box and box of reels, was in the conservatory.  To compare my previous working space was just about the size of the bench top with the computer on it, for everything.

Downside is the commute to work has extended to almost a minute, longer if I don't want to spill my tea. 

One external pic to give the idea, the internal shots are very much WIP.  I was having a tidy up to accommodate my new Tigger Challenge winnings of a DSO3014T that arrived today and a loan 34465A after mine went back DOA (flickering screen and replacement ETA of Feb 2016  ).  The DS2072 will be going soon once I get to grips with the 3014T - already love the touch screen.

I managed to build the desk so it doesn't have legs at the front, just the ends and back, for scale the long bench is 3.5m from wall to wall.  It's free standing and pretty solid. you sit on it without any problems.  Next is to sort out some shelves above the bench and some under bench cable tidies to keep everything from hanging around.

[SeanB]

Nice desk, and plenty of natural light as well, and a view to go along with it.  Just have to put in an intercom for delivery of fresh tea, or put in a small bar fridge for the milk and a small kettle, along with a tiny basin, for those cleaning times.

[jc101]

Nice desk, and plenty of natural light as well, and a view to go along with it.  Just have to put in an intercom for delivery of fresh tea, or put in a small bar fridge for the milk and a small kettle, along with a tiny basin, for those cleaning times.

Thanks, the bench is 25mm ply + 6mm Oak veneer MDF  for the top, so if I bugger it up I can just replace the MDF sheets.  The frame is 4"x 2" oak with oak newel posts from eBay cut down for legs, one of the uncut ones (always order a spare!) is acting as a cable holder at the moment.

The daylight is great, although the wire halogens that came with the office will get swapped at some point for LED.  Probably run an LED strip under the leading edge of one of the shelves too.

No intercom, but the first thing apart from power and data hookup was to extend the doorbell down there.  I have to walk back to the house for tea and supplies, or I get a text from the other half.
Still, gets me out of the office as I go through quite a bit of tea

[bookaboo]

Very nice JC101, do you mind sharing the name of the company you got that from or more details on the construction methods?

[jc101]

Very nice JC101, do you mind sharing the name of the company you got that from or more details on the construction methods?

It's an off the shelf office company in the UK, you can literally design it on their website, it's all modular.

The pic attached is when the base went down.  It's a metal skin around insulation and that sits on a metal ring beam with a number of concrete pads dotted around underneath. My floor is 3 such panels and they have a labyrinth joint between them.  The result is the office is off the ground, the front left corner is level with the paving but the back right is a couple of inches up as the paving sloped slightly for drainage.  The walls go onto the wood you can see in the pic.  I had to remove the block paving from under the footprint before they arrived.

The roof is the green bits in the pic, again metal with foam insulation inside.  Overlapping joints this time for when they screw it all together.  The walls are also pre-fab, standard is white melamine faced chipboard, kingspan foil backed insulation, moisture barrier then an air gap before the external wood cladding.  I also had it plaster boarded and skimmed, for additional insulation and because I would go nuts looking at the melamine and it's joints, plus it's virtually impossible to repair or paint it in the future or make good screw holes and the like.

Not the cheapest around, and I did look at a few.  I went to see their factory & showroom before placing the order and so far very pleased.  3 Days to build the thing itself, plus the plastering and final fix etc.  I saved some money by painting it and sorting out the electrics down to it, just had a sparky hook it up and issue the required paperwork.  I didn't take their floor and had Karndean put down, nicer on the feet and if damaged it's easy to replace a "plank" as required.

It's called "The Garden Office" but is actually a different company underneath, they sell various designs under different branded websites but make them all in the same factory.
http://www.thegardenoffice.co.uk

After checking with the accountant, it went through my company, to recover the VAT.  But I don't mind spending the money to get something I can stand being in for hours at a time.

[nanofrog]

It turned out great inside jc101. Nicely done. 

[Fred27]

Another happy garden office / workshop customer here. I had a minor problem with the foundations of mine sinking and the company were just as keen to sort it out as they were to sell it to me. You can tell a more about a company by how they deal with problems than if you don't have any.
https://0xfred.wordpress.com/2015/06/28/a-new-workshop-part-2/

[cvriv]

I've recently had an office / workshop built at the end of the garden.  It's not very big but a huge increase in space over what is available inside the house.  The other half is pleased to have regained her study (worktops, cupboards, and floor), living room table, and lost a random collection of boxes hidden away where I could find space.  The reflow oven, hidden under the RS box and box of reels, was in the conservatory.  To compare my previous working space was just about the size of the bench top with the computer on it, for everything.

Downside is the commute to work has extended to almost a minute, longer if I don't want to spill my tea. 

One external pic to give the idea, the internal shots are very much WIP.  I was having a tidy up to accommodate my new Tigger Challenge winnings of a DSO3014T that arrived today and a loan 34465A after mine went back DOA (flickering screen and replacement ETA of Feb 2016  ).  The DS2072 will be going soon once I get to grips with the 3014T - already love the touch screen.

I managed to build the desk so it doesn't have legs at the front, just the ends and back, for scale the long bench is 3.5m from wall to wall.  It's free standing and pretty solid. you sit on it without any problems.  Next is to sort out some shelves above the bench and some under bench cable tidies to keep everything from hanging around.

Dude that is awesome!!!

[bookaboo]

Thanks for info, very interesting units. How's the insulation in those things guys? What heating systems are you running?

[Deathwish]

I would personally use a shipping container covered in timber to look like a shed, problem is some scally round here would try to steal the rims or wheels of off it that it doesn't have.

[cvriv]

Ok this is what I'm going with as the design for my bench. I attached a PDF with dimensions. Let me know what you think. All the holes in the surface will be plugged. There's going to be t-nuts in those holes.

[jc101]

Thanks for info, very interesting units. How's the insulation in those things guys? What heating systems are you running?

Insulation in the roof and floor, its a few inches thick.  The walls have foil backed insulation sheets you get in new builds, that is a couple of inches thick.  It's all double glazed with standard units found in new builds etc.

Heating wise it came with an oil filled radiator, and I also have a fan heater.  That said I leave the oil radiator on low overnight and turn it off when I go in, most of the time so far i don't need much else with equipment on in there.  Lowest ambient has been 3c or so, then the fan heater turns on for 30 seconds or so every now and again.

[Marco]

Let me know what you think.

Instead of all the small metal/wood horizontal braces I'd use one big one (2 by 8?) attached with two bolts to the steel legs instead of 1, that gives you the equivalent of some diagonal bracing.

I contemplated a desk with a frame from those screwed pipe fittings as well but the cost of all the little pieces added up too fast when I started to add diagonal bracing. Just the legs seems a good compromise.

[nanofrog]

Ok this is what I'm going with as the design for my bench. I attached a PDF with dimensions. Let me know what you think. All the holes in the surface will be plugged. There's going to be t-nuts in those holes.

How deep are the shelves (not listed in the .pdf)?

FWIW, you'd probably want the upper shelves as wide as the entire bench like you originally had (you'd be surprised how fast you can fill them). Bench height is a little tall IMHO (accustomed to a tall bench @ ~ 36"), but if you've the right stool/drafting chair, it may not be a problem (no idea as to your height). As per the bottom shelf, go with a solid piece of material with some horizontal bracing beneath so it won't sag when you add weight (i.e. board/s glued & screwed in the vertical edge horizontally for the entire width of the shelf; say 1x4", preferably a hardwood rather than pine). You might also want to put a center brace to the floor out of either wood or more threaded steel (4 flanges & 2 pieces of threaded steel pipe).

[jc101]

My bench design is pretty simple, the aim was to have as few joints as possible. So less work and relying on the oak frame to take the strain.

All the joints are pocket hole fixings, so the ends of the "beams" are attached to each leg, and where they cross to each other.  The 25mm ply is also attached to the frame also by pocket hole screws from the frame up into the top.  This means no visible fixings and the tops are free from anything.  The top MDF layer is held on simply by a bead of silicone, enough to stop it moving about and easy enough to remove should it be needed.  A bit of iron on edging hides the layered top from view, again easy to remove should it be required.

There is less than 1cm clearance between the bench and the walls, so I've put in 80mm holes in strategic places for cables to pass through.  This is large enough to let me drop a 13a UK plug through rather than have to poke an IEC up through a hole from underneath.

Once the wood arrived, only took a few hours to put it together.  The longest bit was working out how to use and setup the pocket hole jig to get the depth and angles right.  It doesn't exactly match the dimensions on the drawing as the builders merchants were too exact in their cutting, but it saved me the job.  The offcuts from the ply sheets will probably be used for the shelves, and I cut a bit to go under the reflow oven with castors to make it easy to pull out if needed.  It's attached to the fume extractor so no issues using it in situ under the desk.

It is a very simple design, but also very strong once everything is screwed together.  Shelves will probably be simple twin slot rails and what ply I have left or 18mm ply, I looked at having them mounted on the desk but decided against that in order to keep the top as free as possible.  The fume extractor arm on the desk will probably be as far as they go along the wall.