My first workbench and cuts with the table saw.

With a new table saw I of course wanted to start cutting with it right away, what better way to do that then to make an outfeed table for it? I decided to make a hybrid outfeed table/workbench to save on some room in the shop, although I am not cramped yet I think I will be satisfied with the bench.

Every woodworker wants something different that fits their needs. I knew that I wanted a good outfeed table and I also needed a workbench I started looking online for different ideas. I found a good video done by the Wood Whisperer about an outfeed table built from 3/4" plywood. I really liked the table and I was going to build that at first before I decided to make it a multifunctional table.

I wanted a good heavy table with a vice and maybe some bench dogs, I wanted to be able to clamp things to it, and I wanted it to be stout, sturdy and flat. So I changed the WW's outfeed table design a bit and added a 4" overhang on three sides of the table and about a 9" overhang on one side for a vice. I wanted to table good and heavy so I decided to put two pieces of plywood on the top instead of one and then a piece of hardboard on top of it.

So I went to Lowe's and purchased three sheets of 3/4" birch plywood for about $42 a piece, talk about expensive! I brought them to the shop and planned on starting the bench the following day. That evening I was talking with the engineer at my mother's truss manufacturing company and he suggested that I just use some "1 by" pine instead of the expensive plywood for the framing. Also, I had been debating using MDF on the top instead of plywood to save on a few bucks. So this is the way I went, a bench built out of "1 by" pine and MDF.

The difference in price was a pretty good bit. The three pieces of MDF were $78 total compared to the $126 plywood sheets. I had enough pine scrap on hand to build the frame and then some. Overall it was much cheaper and now I have three sheets of nice birch plywood in the shop.


I didn't have much 1x4 pine to use for the framing but I had plenty of 1x10 and 1x12 pine boards that were old and warped to the point that they were unusable as a large piece. When I ripped the pine boards down to size they warp wasn't noticeable. This turned out good because I was forced to rip all the boards down on my new table saw!

Anyways, I cut all the boards for the framing to length before I began assembling the frame, which didn't take long. I got the frame glued, tacked, and screwed together and it is pretty sturdy.





I did get one piece of the MDF top cut but not attached to the frame yet. I was by myself so I was unable to cut it on the tablesaw by myself so I used my Dewalt skill saw and a long metal ruler as a guide. It was the first time I had used a guide to cut sheet goods and it worked surprisingly well.

Let down today......

I wake up this morning early without an alarm clock excited about my new saw. According to the tracking information the saw should be delivered sometime today because it is already in town so it just needs to be trucked over to my shop. I even called UPS Frieght yestarday afternoon to ask for an approximate time that should be expecting the delivery, they told me that were no sure but would call back withing 30 minutes. Well of course I never heard back from them, until today....

This afternoon at 3pm I recieve a call from UPS saying that my saw will delivered the following day......... So that means that I wasted an entire day waiting for nothing! Nothing was accomplished!

We will see how tomorrow goes.................

I ordered a new table saw!

Great news! I have ordered a new table saw and it should be arriving some time tomorrow, I can't wait, its like Christmas.....



I ordered a professional grade cabinet saw, the Grizzly 1023SL. I have been wanting a new table saw for quite some time now but I have been putting it off due to a couple reasons (the leaking roof which isn't perfectly fixed but it is much better than it was, and lack of funds for a new toy), but I decided that it was time to jump.

Deciding what table saw to purchase was definitely a tough decision, but it was fun researching and learning so much about different table saw on the market. When I first looked at table saws I was looking at something in the $600-$900 range. I was liking the contractor saws that I was finding on the Rockler website, they were the only ones that fit in my budget and that was the only place I really knew to look for saws.

So I decided on a saw but then I couldn't decide which fence I wanted with it since there were three different options, the best which was about $300 dollars more than the basic fence. I decided to join a woodworking forum and ask people who actually knew what they were talking about. So that is when I found Lumberjocks.com, and I am glad I did as the community was most helpful.

I asked my question and people started chiming in with suggestions. A few people said that I should skip the contractor saw and just go with a professional grade cabinet saw for $200 more than $900 contractors saw that I was eyeing. The saw that was suggested was the Grizzly 1023SL. After reading countless reviews and asking more and more questions on the forum I realized that all of the experienced folks at Lumberjocks knew what they were talking about so I decided to fork out a bit more money and get the full blown cabinet saw.

I think I will glad that I choose the cabinet saw over the contractor saw because the price wasn't an extreme difference but the quality of the saw should be a big difference. Looks like we will see tomorrow!