Portable workbench part two

With the top complete, I turned my attention to the base.  The big issue is how tall to make the bench.  There's a tradeoff between making it higher for a taller toolbox and having a comfortable working height.  Most picnic tables are 28"-30".  I wanted my toolbox to be 9" high, so, with 2x4s top and bottom, that gave me a 12" height, making the working height 40-42", which is bar height.  That is quite high, though in the range for joinery benches used by taller woodworkers.  My bent elbow is 48" off the ground.  I tried this height and think it will be fine.

There may be times when this is too high and, if so, I am going to clamp the bench to the seat of the picnic table, using some foot-long 4x4s to raise it up a bit.  Picnic table seats are usually about 19", so this will give me about a 35" working height.  A joinery bench that converts to a planing bench!

You could dispense with the picnic table altogether and make some auxiliary legs that would detach for transport, or even use a saw bench, but, while they would be strong enough, they wouldn't have the mass that the picnic table does, which I found to be quite nice.  That's something I may experiment with in the future though.

This is what my portable bench looks like:

The overhangs on the sides are to allow for clamping the bench to the table and workpieces to the top.  Nothing very imaginative here, just some shallow dadoes to join the top and bottom to the sides and some rabbeted shiplap to fill in the bottom and back so as to protect the toolbox when stored inside. The back also serves to stiffen the top.  I later added some stout dowel pins through the top into the sides on all four corners.  The bench is strong, rigid and weighs 29 lbs.

With this done, I chose to add a vise and decided on a twin screw, quick release version.  I hope you are intrigued, because that's next.