Working on a Workbench

[c0re_dump]

Things have been a bit up and down over Christmas. The last couple of days were definitely down, but things are looking up now that I've got started on making something again. This one's a very straightforward physical construction project: I'm making a workbench

Comments

[jarkman]

I know they look crappy, but a Workmate actually makes a suprisingly handy instabench for that kind of work. It's also very light, which means you can put it up in the middle of the space you have available in order to work on big things.

I have a very venerable one, which has stood up to years of use and abuse. I bet you can find one on Freecycle without too much trouble...

By the way, how much do you know about (a) the AVR Burtterfly and (b) domestic SMT assembly ? quercus kindly gave me a Butterfly and an SMT gyro chip for Xmas, and I need to make them dance somehow.

[quercus]

I hate Workmates as workbenches - the number of tools I've bust or bent when they've fallen off... They're OK as clamps for the one thing you're working on, but you do need a "table" of some sort as well.

That design looks fine, but I would diagonalise the back of it for stiffness. Easy to do when you're making it, a pain to add on later.

[c0re_dump]

I've had no luck at all finding a Workmate on FreeCycle, for some reason. I did get a Mac G4 "Sawtooth" on New Years Eve, though, and I may be lined up on another iMac. Also got an Acorn Archimedes A310 on New Years Day (slipped on ice and nearly fell carrying it down the front path to the car).

As for AVR Butterfly, I've never used one. I've done lightweight SMT assembly with things like resistors for LEDs and decouping capacitors, but nothing really minute (I call him Tiny, 'cos he's my newt). I've melted SMD solder with a domestic smoothing iron, though (on purpose, you understand, to desolder a part). People seem to do it with skillets and suchlike (Lady Ada has a video of doing so at Adafruit Industries).