Ed's Custom Woodcraft's

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Torsion Box Outfeed & Assembly Table

Edward Keogh

Hello Everyone

I have just embarked on a new project for the workshop, I am replacing my current outfeed/assembly table with another that has a few features that my current one doesn’t have I will go into that in a little while. Since I am now working full time this project is likely to take a while to complete and will probably only get some quality shop time at home during the weekends and possibly a few nights as well.

PROJECT SUMMARY

  • Project Sequence

  • Outfeed / Assembly Table features

  • Inspiration & Plans

  • Materials

  • Cabinet Carcass Section

  • Torsion Box Section

  • Cabinet Drawers & Doors

PROJECT SEQUENCE

I am tackling this huge project in a series of sequences which will be

  • Build the carcass frame (Phase 1)

  • Build The Torsion Box Top (Phase 2)

  • Build & Install Drawers & Doors (Phase 3)

PHASE 1: BASE CARCASS FRAME

PHASE 2: TORSION BOX TOP

PHASE 3 : DRAWERS & DOORS

Outfeed / Assembly Table Features

This table will have the following features as you can see in the diagram below which is an exploded view of the entire table, also remember that whatever you see in the base as far as doors and drawers will be copied on the other side of the cabinet

  • 4’ x 6’ long torsion box top (basically a torsion box can be described as a table top with a honey comb insides that provides the structure needed for a very flat and non movable surface. Below you can see the structure of the torsion box on one of my plan pages that I created.(I will make the plans available after the project is built just in case I have to tweak them here and there)

  • It will also be portable as I will be adding a total of 8 casters which will be mounted to the cabinet ends of the base

  • The base cabinet will have 8 drawers (4 on each side) and 4 cabinet 2 on each side.

  • Overall there will be huge amounts of easily accessible storage to fit tools that I currently don’t have room for especially a dedicate cabinet for my air compressor

INSPIRATION & PLANS

Inspiration for this table came from Marc Spagnulo (AKA The Wood Whisperer) I came across some YouTube videos that go into great detail for the build, he also has a rough set of plans available that I will post links too below. I needed to tweak the dimensions for the table to suit my table-saw height.

Basically his design broke the project into two sections which were

  • The Cabinet Build

  • The Torsion Box Build

How to make a Torsion Box Assembly Table. A method learned from David Marks at http://djmarks.com When assembling projects, nothing beats a wide and spacious dead flat surface. And one of the easiest and most efficient ways to create a dead flat surface is by constructing what is known as a torsion box.

MATERIALS NEEDED

There are a lot of materials to be purchased for this project and can be considered and expensive build but if you break the project down into sections the cost will not hit you all at once, at least that is what I am doing. Below is what you will need to build this table. Since I am talking the cabinet base first I got the 3 full sheets of plywood as that will be enough to build the cabinet base, you will need to get a 1 sheet of 1/2” plywood for the drawer bottoms but that can be gotten later on.

PHASE 1: BASE FRAME


TODAYS ACTIVITIES

  • Broke down the 3 sheets of plywood to more manageable sized pieces, I used a number system on broken down panel’s so as that I knew what each panel was to be used for

  • Started working on the base cabinet , this will have a lot of work and probably will be the lengthiest part of he build. I cut all 4 Vertical partitions to final size