Framed my work benches over the last week, and with the help of my dad and brother, we added 1.25" tops on them, plus skinned them with formica. They are pretty much bomb proof. The tools that are not in the shop already will start moving there tomorrow.




That little 11 foot long bench is where I'll set up my reloading presses!

Niiiice, Wanna buy a dust collection system off me?

Looks great, all you need now are some "women in waders" calendars on those walls.

Snake

Dogfish,you are always getting it done.sweet job on the whole project.

editt:I have been building houses for quite a few years.Most of us dread having the homeowner around.Very few can even envision the house in there minds when looking at the plans,let alone be comfortable pulling the trigger on a worm drive.Framed a few houses years ago for the early U-buildit outfit.They tell the homeowner that they can save a few thou by playing general foreman.Out of six or so houses only one retired couple new to be there every morning to iron out the daily problems,get materials,etc.The rest all relied on us to do there job for them.

Then there was the retired father in law , of a general contractor buddy,who had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance.He passed out watching me pull a 131 galvy out of my thigh.The only reason I shot myself was I was talking with him instead of paying attention to what I was doing.He was bored and lived down on the job site.Had no idea what we were really doing but he had fun and got in our way.He was a nice guy though.

Its too bad more of the homeowners I got to work with were not of your caliber.I would of made more money.

Damn... its assholes like you that make the other 90 % of husbands in America look like slackers in the eyes of their wives.

You suck.

P.S Nice work bench

The other day I went to the local chainsaw shop and I found a great pair of workpants (carpentry work), Wrangler Ranger pants. While I was there I picked up a Stihl Chainsaw calendar, with as my Dad said yesterday, "some really healthy women" on it. It hangs right over the toilet. The part that cracks me up is that on the back of it it states, "Photos do not represent real life work situations." Fawkin lawyers.

My wife said, "So I suppose you are going to tell me that you found that calendar while you were shopping for pants."

I told her, "No dear, I went there specifically for the calendar, and lucked out on the pants."

Buddy got me an autographed "Guns & Camo" calendar. That will probably go near the reloading bench. I would think the women in waders calendar would have to be hung by the fishing rods.

Sorry for being an asshole. It's just my nature.

I was married for a really.. really long time. 10 of those years I had my next door neibour " Jack " around. He was retired and lived to putter around in his shop ( that he built himself of course ) It was a shrine to the Gods of clean and neat. He had every tool and knew how to do anything. He could figure out in 3 seconds what was wrong with my sprinkler system.. or my car.. or my dish washer. It got pretty bad. I would be working on something and the ex would say " instead of screwing that up, why not just ask Jack what to do "...

Jack never went fishing. That makes me a better man than Jack. Jack did not have an 8 handi cap out at the local muni.. this made me a cooler person than Jack. Jack could not ride a wheelie all the way up the street on a dirt bike.. or drink very much, and this made me a person of great value. The wife never cared about any of my great talents...

Therefore... I hate Jack

I've got that very calendar. My Mom gave it to me for Christmas

Nice bench ... remember it was the first thing I do to our new place. Seems small now that all the other crap is in there.

Which corners are you attaching the vise and grinder?

And yeah, you're an asshole, despite the obvious good taste in beer displayed in pic #4.

Right end of the right angle bench and the left end of the reloading bench get the vises so I can clamp on long stuff. Not sure where the grinder goes, but I'll probably just drill holes for it and take it out when needed. Had it for years and I've used it 4 or 5 times.

I rode a wheelie on the mini bike today, by accident, I suck at golf if bogie golf is sucking, I'm "okay" at fishing, and while I can do anything at all with wood, I can't weld yet and my small engine repair is improving from "complete dolt" to "novice". I'm no Jack. I think I have the drinking heavily thing down, but I am also no Seastrike.

Those are great looking benches, for sure! Something you may want to consider is a way to protect those windows, tho. I know that I could easily knock something off the bench and through the window. I bounced a couple of things off the windows behind my porch bench until I put a backsplash on it.

You're way ahead of me Andy! How did you decide how high to put the electrical outlets? I was thinking of putting them just a few inches above bench height. I wish I had time to wire, insulate, and drywall, but I keep having other tasks to do so as not to fall too far behind the contractors. More T&G soffit material coming tomorrow, which means sealing Mon. night, stain Tues. night, and SeaFin Wed. night. My garage/shop floor is lots dirtier than your tho.

I had last year's Stihl calendar. Might be time for another trip to their store.

It looks like you used 1/2" OSB for the lower shelf. Is it? What did you use for the bench tops to get 1.25"?

Love that pancake compressor! I bought one of those a couple weeks ago. What a retard! I shoulda' bought it last summer when I first began framing. Duh!! Now I keep hearing the "I told you so" from my SO. It sure pops those finish nails into the soffit material tho. Also picked up a palm nailer and used it today for some awkward position toe-nailing.

LitlCleo,

Loved reading your side of the Ubuiltit story. I'm a Ubuildit client, out of necessity. When I first tried to start my project, I couldn't get contractors to even return my calls. Course things were a lot busier then. Anyway, Ubuildit served a needed purpose for me by getting me access to reliable contractors for all the services I've needed. I don't know what they say when I'm not around, but they say they like building Ubuildit projects. No two are alike. But they do have some interesting stories about clients who make major design changes half or more ways through their project. And they sure seem to appreciate having a house to build right now.

Sg

3/4" floor OSB and 1/2" plywood for the tops, just about 36" tall benches. 1/2" OSB for the lower shelves and there are cross members in 3 areas on the short bench, 6 areas on the "L" bench.

We just kind of guessed on the height for the outlets. Better to have them a little high than too low. There will also be shelves above all benches.

Keep practicing Andy and one day you could be just like me.

salmo,
I built for them probably 12 years ago.I believe that they had an affiliation with kingston lumber back then.I have heard that they have switched owners since then.
I think there biggest problem back then was that they offered support in the form of an experienced superintendent.I never met him and I believe the clients were cheated out of that service.I believe that other problems actually stemmed from kingston lumber themselves.
I remember one house that had a good sized12\12 hand cut roof.All the ceilings were vaulted.When kingston sent out the roof load, the 2\12 rafter material was essentially, not long enough for the main body.Somebody had taken all of the spans and forgot to do the math for the actual rafter lengths.Accidents happen.We went to kingston lumber to address this and were told the lumber package was right.We could not get them to even come out and look at the package.
On this home the homeowner-general was out of town for two weeks at a time for work.He finally got back and got kingston to rectify the problem.Turns out that kingston, had lost there architect that did there take offs.The manager at the time had tried to do the take off and was trying to cover his mistake.
The plans on this project called for all the ceilings to be vaulted.Bathrooms closets everything.We called the homeowner and expressed our concerns.He wanted it per plan.We spent a week pony up the walls.He gets back,walks into the house,and finally realized what we were talking about.So we started dropping the ceilings.Of coarse he paid for this.He was a great guy.Probably should not of qualified for U build it,being as he was gone so much.He actually took responsibility for this and paid us for our time.Problem is that back then, we were booked and these problems threw our schedules way off and left other customers waiting for us to get started.

I remember another project,actually the last one we did for u-buildit.Home owner found out he could save 100 dollars by having only one lumber drop.So we ended up with two floors and a roof load dropped all at once.Really should not be big deal except that this project was already stuffing the property lines..There was no room for us to scatter the lumber drop.Of course kingston did not stack the lumber package in an order that would help us.First floor on the bottom basically,so the entire package had to be taken apart and put back together in an order that worked for us and left room for some work on the lot.Another note is that hemlock does not like being unband and left out in the sun.This left us with a lot of lumber twisting up and needing to be culled out.When you bid by the square foot this kind of stuff hurts.

I always thought the idea was good It just did not have the wrinkles ironed out of it.Acting as a source for reputable subs is a huge asset alone.I am not wanting to bad mouth u-buildit as I know nothing of how they operate today.

Did one out in port ludlow.Right on the golf course.The home owner was a retired couple.They were out every morning to make sure everything was going as planned.They had basic building knowledge but most importantly they were there to progress the job.They did not have there own jobs to take care of first.I remember building a small garage for his golf cart.Then he found he was not allowed to use his own, had to rent on from the course.

Dogfish!

You really know how to build a man cave I was gonna add that I am too rough on workbench tops, so while the formica tops look awesome, I'd scratch them all to heck in no time. I've used 1/4" tempered hardboard for work tops - when they get roughed up too much, I unscrew and replace them. Keep this in mind when you're heftin' engine blocks around and throwing them on your counters

Litlcleo,

Interesting stories. If I knew a few people in the business, I could have done this on my own, but when contractors are too busy to return calls to a one-project prospect, Ubuildit was what I needed. Getting good contractors has been worth the Ubuildit fee to me. Also I can call the construction supervisor anytime with tech questions. Mainly they've provided me with small contractors with no advertising but word-of-mouth. Sometimes I use the lowest bidder and sometimes not. I chose my lumberyard based on the guy who did the takeoff; he took me in his office and really went over the plans with me, so he understood them, and I understood them a lot better than I had beforehand. Their bid was slightly higher, but it's made a real difference. And there's been no problem with picking up returns, replacements, and changes in orders. The framing contractor is permitted to charge materials to my account, so they get what they need when they want it. If there's a downside, it's the waste. I can't believe the nails and staples tossed around on the ground. The roofers left dozens of partially used and unused nail coils with the roofing waste. I know it costs too much in time to bend over and pick it up, but when I was a kid, we picked up every damn nail. Just an old habit.

Mike,

I like your idea. I think Andy's formica is too fancy for my shop bench, not that I have any engine blocks to toss on it. Being able to unscrew and replace the hardboard top might work out well for me.

Andy,

Have you begun on the house yet? This morning I had carpenters hanging house siding, the plumber finishing the rough-in, the HVAC guy starting the furnace duct work, and we did a walk thru with the electrician. And tonight I stain more T&G soffit material.

Sg

Dogfish and Salmo G-

One thing that amazes me is that it has to be raining up your way when these guys are working. Down here, if it rains, they'll tell you they can't pour concrete or do any framing. I enjoy the regional differences when it comes to construction issues.

Hard rain can mess up a pour, but the contractor has ways of dealing with some of it. Canceling is the last resort. My framers started on the house the first of Nov, just as it started to pour. It rained pretty hard most of 4 of the 5 weeks it took to frame up to roof sheeting. Roofers got it shingled just before the Dec. snow. Pissed me off to have all that lumber get wet, but it's almost all dried out now. 7 week delay last summer due to 2 errors by the country building inspector. Also cost me $750 for a geotechnical engineer that I shouldn't have needed, but losing prime construction season was the worst part.

Sg

I was doing a foundation out in Manchester years ago.There was an 80 year old man living next door.I was busy scraping a bunch of borrowed,brand new form boards.The old boy come over and asked if he could buy one to make a work bench out of.I was always thought that it was a good idea for doing heavy engine work on.I want to say that we were paying 80 bucks a pop back then though.That old boy was an inspiration.He spent a good four hours a day splitting wood.These were some big rounds too.

Salmo,
Waste is something that still grinds on me.These days we have sacrificed a lot for the sake of speed.Most of those fasteners you found on the ground were because of a nailer-stapler jamming up or because they would take a little extra effort to feed in the tool.Same goes for all the half racks of framing nails you found.
The amount of wood required for framing,by engineers,is a huge waste too.Not just in material costs but energy costs.Wood is a terrible insulator.They built some duplexes behind my folks house and painted them with a high gloss paint.When it freezes you can see the entire skeleton of the structure,studs, headers ,plates everything.Really opened my eyes to this.

Sounds to me like The U-buildit program is actually providing the service they were trying to back when I tangled with them.That is good as I always did like the idea.

A good thing with this housing slump is that a lot of the rip off subs will fall by the wayside.Word of mouth is the best way to find a sub.A good sub will always have plenty of people to vouch for them.