I used to have an old metal desk that I used for a work bench. I loved that thing, but it was very heavy and hard to move. I wish I had kept it, it was perfect for what I needed!
This was my last "workbench". I didn't work out so well. It was in the dinning room. It didn't hold enough so I was always getting up to get things stored elsewhere. I also had to put EVERYTHING away all the time since it was in the dinning room. It was great in the winter as it had a radiator on either side.
Having moved recently, and busy with school/work, etc, I haven't had time to set mine back up. This was 12 years ago, during a Kaslo/SAR F-45 build....
Having just passed through a divorce, mine is partially here, and the main portion in a storage unit. Hoping to get it all reassembled soon- Depends upon the weather for retrieving and hauling.....
Sorry to hear of divorce.....Been there done that......twice..... stay positive!!! Best to you in the coming years. Jim
Ditto on the divorce. I went through it too. Tuff time in my life, but it was worth it or I would have never met my current wife of 14 years.
I have noticed my eyes don't seem to work as well as they did a year ago.. Those glasses sure help with the decal sheets and drilling #80 holes.
I have three pair, each of a different magnification. Sometimes I'll wear multiples at the same time to get the magnification I want. Any more I use this method instead of the Optivisor. With the glasses I don't have to flip up a visor or strain my neck way back to find a tool in my bench organizer.
I have a small portable drafting table with T-Square, ruler, compass, mechanical pencils and triangles that I keep handy near my old desk/worktable. Somehow or other I took a class in Mechanical Drawing 45+ years ago in High School. At the time I had no idea how useful this skill would be in my life laying out plans for woodworking, train layouts and scratchbuilt structures. I suspect that younger people are skilled with CAD and have no need for a table and T-Square, but I'm happy to stick with what I know. I wonder if High Schools even teach such skills these days?
The ugly truth . . . I'm lucky enough to have three workbenches! One, outside for making my plaster mountains and stuff (below, I've just painted some pre-made, latex-foam mountains). A second one, a glass drafting table, that I have in the living room. And the third, in the garage, which is really just a place to pile a mountain of Kato and Atlas boxes! In the spirit of the thread, and the greater good, I am NOT going to clean up the latter two and will post them AS-IS! My new upgraded outdoor Ikea countertop workbench (it's kind of neat because I just built it): Living room workbench "before" shot: Living room workbench "after" shot I took just now: Garage workbench "before" shot (waaaay "before"): Garage workbench "after" shot that I just took a minute ago: Pretty ridiculous, isn't it? Feel free to laugh at my mess as much as you like!
That's the spirit! I feel the messier the bench, the more gets done for some reason, maybe it's because the projects are visible(somewhat...).
My main workbench is a repurposed desk I found over 10 years ago thrown away on a curb. Drawers etc were all gone. I used it as a counter up against a wall to pile things on and under. When I started my new downsized N layout in 2017, I discard large amounts of stores stuff and had no available place for the table against a wall. However, the table fit easily under my 30" x 83" train table (39" tabletop height). My old "junk-piling" table fit even when I put casters on it. Now I roll that table out from under layout as my indoor workbench. It has only 2 or so inches of clearance so I can't leave much on it when I roll it back under.
Hi Kenneth, Great shots -- thank you! I don't want to derail this thread (har har), but what is the width and length of one of your Kato turnout controls? They caught my eye and I want to see if I might have room for them on my new layout. Have they been reliable? Thanks again.