Hi I'm Craig Phillips and in this video I want to show you how to build your own work
bench using recycled pallet wood. The tools you're going to require an electric chop saw
if you don't have one of them hand saw is okay cordless drills, screws, a clamp, tape
measure ,pencil, electric sander, drill bit and some glue.
Now the first stage is to decide how high you actually want the workbench to be. I've
chosen 770 millimetres for the legs. Now the legs have got to be nice and stable so what
we are going to do is taking off the slats off the standard pallets you have these skid
sections underneath, they around about 4 inches by to inches nice and thick. I'm going to
use them for the legs will mark up four of them at 770 millimeters, chop these down.
So we cut four of them to the same size. Right that's now the four legs all cut into
position. The next thing is we want to use a similar piece of timber which is a 3 B 2
again it's the skid that are used on the underside of the pallet but I'm going to create a frame
for the top of the table a rectangular shape you've got to decide how long do you want
and how wide you want it. I'm going to choose it to be about 900 millimeters
wide and about 600 millimeters in depth. That's one side of the frame I'm going to cut another
one at 600 millimeters and then two of them at 900 millimeters to make that rectangular
shape. So that's our four pieces cut now for the tabletop and the frame.
All we got to do now is screw these together and create a rectangular shape like this.
I'm going to use my pencil and mark up the width of what this wood is and same again
on the opposite side then I’m going to turn that over.
I'll drill right in the center of that two holes for the pallet holes, and the same again
on the opposite side. Plenty of glue on them corners place it on a corner of this workbench
so now I'm getting it nice and square. I'm using large 80 millimeter screws, same again
on the opposite side. Place your side into position, again marking it with your pencil
and drill your pallet holes. Plenty of glue. Nice and square to the corner,
and drive your screws in.
Our legs we can start to fit them by placing them into position again we'll drill some
pallet holes in here plenty of glue around that corner and simply screw it into position.
Glue on two sides of the timber where it meets the corner, nice and flush of the underside
bottom of the table and again nice long 80 millimeter screws holding them firmly in position.
Once you've got one in you repeat the same on the other three now that's the four legs
and the top frame of the table constructed the next stages is to fix the slat across
the top. The standard size of the slats are usually
about a metre or 1200 millimeters in length so we're going to place one on one end after
the outside is flushed and then make a pencil mark on the other end.
I'm going to chop that down and then repeat that with nine separate pieces to cover the
entire top. So that's nine pieces all cut to size we can place plenty of glue all the
way along the top frame to help fix them slats down nice and secure.
The first piece could be placed nice and square with the top frame a little clamps
for the very first one before it's screwed down double-checking and it's flushed. Drill
a couple of pallet holes we always wanted two screws at least in each end, same again
in the opposite end. I want to fix alongside it but what I also
want to do is just put a little line of glue along the top of here to make it nice and
tight against there and strong. Again you can use your clamp
squeeze that together you may get a little bit of glue squeezing through the joint but
that's not a problem, offer it up make sure it's nice and flush on the sides a couple
more pallet drills to stop the wood splitting from both end
and it's screwed down. And then of course we do the same with the
other seven until we've completely covered the top and likewise with the front one and
the back one. We also screwed that down to the frame above it there, so that's now the
top of the bench cut and fixed into position. You might find that you might have a little
bit of spring in there depending on how long you make it. If you do find you've got a little
bit of spring between there you can also cut another section here glue it underneath and
screw it down that will stabilize it and of course if you're making this a lot longer
you may need to put them in about every 500 millimetres apart. Now the top of the workbench
is complete. It's nice and solid what we've got to focus
on is the legs themselves if there is an excessive weight on the top the legs could have a tendency
of moving out or even fallen to one side. What we need to do is brace it up so again
we can usethe slat off the pallet fixing them all the way around the bottom. So we start
by placing it up to the top of the legs flush on one side mark on the other side we cut
that down, we do the same for the opposite side and then we simply fix these into position
and that's the four base rails all the way around the legs keeping it nice and stable.
What we can do now is put some more slats across here and this can act as a lower shelf
that's about right nice and flush on all of them edges and then we can start to pallet
drill them again and fix them into position. That's pretty normal with the most like two
slats to screws is ample. Now that's the bottom shelf complete before we build the back section
to it what's wise to do is give it a good sanding down first and I'm going to use a
belt sander. Now for the back board of the workbench
very simple construction. I've started off with the two pieces of 3 by 2 which is the
skids at the bottom of the pallets and then I've took the slats off re-screwed them down
with just a small gap like what we did on the bottom shelf.
So that's nice and secure on there what I'm going to do is lift that into position sit
it directly on top of the bench of course I've cut these slats down to the length of
what the bench is but these timbers that are coming down the back I've also applied a small
section on there what that's going to do is allow me to screw into there and keep that
nice and upright. So we've got a square angle from here I'm
going to use some 4 inch screws this time. I've already pre-drilled some pallet holes,
just going to line them up let's ensure it's flushed with that edge and simply screw that
into position. Now that is nice and solid square and upright
to the bench you've probably noticed that I've also fixed in another slat directly to
the top of it to hang over a little small shelf but have pre-drilled some small holes
in there these are ideal for storing tools in them; simple and easy to do with a hole
cutter. Perfect. You can even cut a small little
notch out and slide your hammer into holding position and that's how easy it is to make
a workbench from recycled pallets if you'd like to see some more great DIY tips visit
the website silverlinetools.com