jediknifefight
Member
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2017
- Messages
- 3
One of the things I did when I started to take the dive into the festool soup, was look at the MFT. I think its functionally pretty cool. But its a little small, and kinda expensive. So I started doing research on how I could make my own MFT style table. One of my goals for this is to spend as little extra money on this as possible.
My previous workbench, which ended up being clutter storage, was against the wall, and 16 feet long, 2 feet wide. The tops were MDF. When I took that apart to build a permanent home for my miter saw station, I obviously kept the MDF.
In Sketchup I drew up some plans, very rough plans, just so I could get a jist of how much material I would need to go buy, and came up with this:
I don't like to spend a ton of time in sketchup, and it shows. The only parts I drew to scale were the MDF tops, so those legs are about 8 or 9 feet tall. Its still good to put ideas on some sort of paper. I do know that I have to buy about 10 2x6x12' boards to build the frame.
Next I had to decide how I was going to put holes into the MDF. In a perfect world I would use the LR32 system that I don't own yet. My 55" rail is on backorder or ordered from my local woodcraft, and there is a chance I may ask for the holey rail when it comes in. So looking into it, I saw that a forum member here has a neat system that allows you to use pegboard to make the holes. I thought I could make that and save some money. So I started prototyping it:
Getting the holes to align was a pain, but I finally got a working jig:
and started cutting my template. If we don't include the festool 20mm bit I am using, I am only about 8 bucks into this.
I also made this uncomfortable but serviceable stool while I was working on this jig and template. (I don't have any where to sit in my shop)
I used the template and the jig to bore out my holes into my first sheet of MDF. Since I built my jig out of 3/4 inch plywood, (its all I have in my shop atm), I had to go back and finish the holes. I did try to flip everything over and use the template from the other side, but that wasn't exact.
3 more to cut out, had to stop because I am pretty sure my neighbors love listening to my OF1400 and CT36 at 2 AM.
More to come.
My previous workbench, which ended up being clutter storage, was against the wall, and 16 feet long, 2 feet wide. The tops were MDF. When I took that apart to build a permanent home for my miter saw station, I obviously kept the MDF.
In Sketchup I drew up some plans, very rough plans, just so I could get a jist of how much material I would need to go buy, and came up with this:
I don't like to spend a ton of time in sketchup, and it shows. The only parts I drew to scale were the MDF tops, so those legs are about 8 or 9 feet tall. Its still good to put ideas on some sort of paper. I do know that I have to buy about 10 2x6x12' boards to build the frame.
Next I had to decide how I was going to put holes into the MDF. In a perfect world I would use the LR32 system that I don't own yet. My 55" rail is on backorder or ordered from my local woodcraft, and there is a chance I may ask for the holey rail when it comes in. So looking into it, I saw that a forum member here has a neat system that allows you to use pegboard to make the holes. I thought I could make that and save some money. So I started prototyping it:
Getting the holes to align was a pain, but I finally got a working jig:
and started cutting my template. If we don't include the festool 20mm bit I am using, I am only about 8 bucks into this.
I also made this uncomfortable but serviceable stool while I was working on this jig and template. (I don't have any where to sit in my shop)
I used the template and the jig to bore out my holes into my first sheet of MDF. Since I built my jig out of 3/4 inch plywood, (its all I have in my shop atm), I had to go back and finish the holes. I did try to flip everything over and use the template from the other side, but that wasn't exact.
3 more to cut out, had to stop because I am pretty sure my neighbors love listening to my OF1400 and CT36 at 2 AM.
More to come.