The Papa Sheep: Welding Bench

I've had covid. I started feeling ill over two weeks ago at the time of writing, but it has really set me back. For a start, there was the best part of three days where I could only move between the bedroom and the couch. Then as soon as I was able to get back to work, I was slammed with all the appointments I'd had to reschedule. And after that I had umpteen reports to write, and no time left to write any of them. If that wasn't bad enough, I started feeling ill on the Friday afternoon before a 3-day weekend. Most specifically a 3-day weekend we had set aside to finish the god damn deck replacement that has already been ongoing for more than a year.

So that's the story of the last couple of weeks. This weekend through I was done with work on Friday evening and ready to work on something fun (i.e. not the deck). If you're not familiar, the photo below shows the set up in my garage. It's a bit cluttered...what I really need is some more drawers or shelves....

In addition to my primary work bench I have an old sideboard that I have been using for storage and as a place to dump stuff. What I really need in this spot is a welding/metal work bench. The top of this bench will be made from the bed from my old table saw and the two side wings.

The bed is 27" x 20" and will be mounted so that the bench has an overall depth of about 23 inches....which means that the wings, which are 27" x 12" are too long:

I solved this problem by chopping the wing in half with a cutting disc....

...and then chopping off a seven-inch-wide section:

When pushed back together, the remaining pieces measure 20" x 12" overall.

The original plan was to build the bench and the new drawers myself....but I didn't want to spend the time it would have taken, so I bought two large toolboxes from one of those big box stores that I use a lot but also loath, and built the bench around them. I want my finished bench to be the same height as the existing timber bench. I started by building a platform for the drawers to stand on and then I leveled it:

I made the platform and the bench from lumber that I had on hand, which was a mixture of doug fir and PT lumber. The four bench legs were made from 4" x 4" PT posts that were salvaged from the old deck enclosure. The design is just copied from my timber bench which was put together sixteen (16) years ago. The original version was made with just a circular saw and some clamps, and the legs took ages to make. All four of these legs were cut in less than twenty minutes using a mixture of the cabinet saw and the band saw.

Bench framework constructed around first toolbox:

Added the second toolbox and secured everything to the wall with Tapcons.

Maneuvered the original bench back into place and secured it to the wall. I took the opportunity to reduce the depth of this bench by five (5) inches. The space I regained will be useful if/when I get another vehicle that needs to share this space with the '68.