Building an entirely customized workbench
As many of you tubetinkers already know, moving into a new house is a great adventure. It brings joy, hope, exciting moments and it opens up possibilities for organizing your life in a new and different way!
This story is about Alex. When Alex and his family moved into their new home, our tubetinker already had a very exciting project in mind: he was going to build himself a man cave in the basement.
His man cave would become his very own space to build projects, spend time with friends, drink beer, and play dart.
Optimizing your man cave with DIY furniture
As soon as the “everyday life essentials” were unpacked, Alex started to plan the layout of his man cave. To optimize the room, Alex decided to plan the most important pieces of furniture according to the space available: there would be no loss of space since he would design everything according to the room’s configuration! He knew he could build a workbench -THE most important item in the room- using tinktube’s system. He was already familiar with the concept and was planning to build most of his furniture with pipes and fittings since he liked the industrial look.
Building your heavy-duty workbench with pipes and fittings
He spotted the best corner in the room to install his heavy-duty workbench and looked online to find a surface that would perfectly fit the dimensions available. He found a great option at IKEA (something that resembles this one), ordered it online, and started to draft the plans for the workbench’s structure, identifying which specific tinktube’s tubes and fittings he would need to build his project.
Did I mention that Alex loved cross-country skiing? Well, he did. When a tubetinkers’ mind is in plans drafting mode and starts thinking about possibilities to integrate other functions to a project, many great and creative things can happen.
DIY multifunctions workbench: when a workbench also becomes a ski waxing table
Once his workbench was all planned out, he made a more formal plan on SketchUp so he could visualize the final result more easily. He created a side drawer that could collect the wax but could also be used for tool storage and changed the color of the tubes for red.
The advantages of building your own ski waxing bench
- Over the years, Alex had thought about buying a ski waxing table from a specialized company (like this one, for instance), but the ones he found were often too expensive or unavailable. The fact that he could adapt one piece of furniture to be used both as a workbench and as a waxing bench was a great way to save money!
Adapt this project with the tinkpad!
Draw your project with this free printable tool which includes an isometric grid and our best tips to get started.
- Because Alex is 6 ft. 4, he chose to build his workbench a little higher than the standard height (his table ended up being about 38” high). Working on a project or waxing your skis without hurting your back is one of the greatest perks of building your own furniture, people.
The “making of” Alex’s home-made workbench / ski tuning table
As Alex puts it, tinktube’s system is very similar to an adult’s lego game. Once you’ve understood how it works, you start enjoying creating new projects and getting all kinds of ideas of things to make!
Drafting up the plan took him about an hour. He got advice from the customer service team at tinktube to make sure he ordered the right amount of tubes and connectors. Once he’d received everything -surface, pipes, and fittings- to start building, the only tool he had to use was an Allen key and the pipe cutter.
It only took him an evening -and a few beers- to build the project!
Alex’s tips if you’re thinking of building a similar project:
- If he could start all over again, Alex said he might have chosen a slightly deeper surface, to create more surface space to work on bigger projects.
- The side drawer to collect wax ended up not being as useful as he expected, so Alex decided to change the system and convert the drawer to a regular one (constant evolution is also a great advantage with tinktube projects).
Looking to build a workbench with multiple functions?
Adapt Esteban’s recipe to create your customized version!
