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Flipping Awesome Workbench Prototype.

FireGuruMN

FireGuruMN

Active Member
So I am indoors for the Minnesota winter (even though it is supposed to hit 50F next week). My first project is restoring a Sansui SM80 tube receiver. Its a monster. I had no desire to be flipping that 50 pound chassis over 100 times during the restoration. And there are delicate tuning wheels on the sides plus glass tubes of course. So I built this.

That's a little pioneer just to see how it works.
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Flippin awesome. . .
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A little diagonal support always needed.
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A place for tools. Drill your own holes. That's the best way I've found to store pliers and cutters.
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Side view. See the Maas-Rowe Carillons in the background. That's going to be fun. I actually have two tube based Carillons. I forget the other brand. CRS is getting worse.
There is probably not any reason for the front leg to be angled other than style points. Maybe it keeps the legs out of my way? Regardless ya gotta have style. I recently donated a drafting table that would have been amazing for this purpose. It had chrome side legs and a huge top that I could have cut a hole in. Oh well, more fun to make sawdust.
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rotates on a piece of 1" black pipe.
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Just a couple of scraps of wood to attach to the amplifier so it is easy to swap out different projects as I am easily distracted.
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Yes, I know the bottom cover has to come off to fix this amp. It's just being used for testing.
I still need to attach some sort of semicircular plywood plate to the side of the rotating bit so I can lock it in at different angles. I'm thinking it will be nice to have it at a slight angle when working on things so my back will not be so stressed. And maybe I can set a vertical pin so I can work on both sides at a time. Maybe even another degree of freedom to rotate in the other plane. Hmmm.

Now I gotta clear some floor space in my indoor work room to get it in the house. That will be the hard part!

Thoughts?
 
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Sweet! That's a great idea. I've worked on a few pieces up on a side to gain top and bottom access, but it's still awkward twisting it on the bench. For the price of a couple 2x4s and some shop scraps, it's almost a no brainer for someone doing a couple of restorations.

Keep us posted!!
 
LOL, when I read the thread title I thought that you had bought something at an estate sale and were flipping it.

Your bench shows some great use of that thing between our ears. Very good workbench, thanks for sharing this. :thumbsup::beerchug:

Cheers,
James
 
Very nice, but I don't think I would be comfortable hanging an amp, like the MC 2255 I am working on, upside down like that. :biggrin:

Good idea and good execution.

Rob
 
Nicely done!

The shop I apprenticed in had a couple of the old cast iron roll-around monsters for doing TV chassis work, back when colour TV chassis could have been used as boat anchors and were even bigger. Wish I had one now:)
 
Great idea especially for tube equipment. With a minimum of three heavy transformers, flipping them around can be a pain.
 
Bratwurst7s said:
I thought that you had bought something at an estate sale and were flipping it
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Ha, multiple meanings. Depends on what's on your mind at the time.
When kids were still around the house I was helping with homework and searched for "Ferel Chinese Donkey" and Google was super helpful by also including searches for "Wild Asian Ass". Imagine the results that returned.

Robisme said:
I don't think I would be comfortable hanging an amp, like the MC 2255 I am working on
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Yes. I've got some 60 pound pieces of equipment that might easily split the 2x4's where the pipe joins the flipping part. But it's just a prototype. . . Production model would probably be a metal frame. My chance to learn welding and buy more tools!
 
Lavane said:
Great idea especially for tube equipment. With a minimum of three heavy transformers, flipping them around can be a pain.
Click to expand...

Yeah, between Ampeg SVT's and Audio Research, I have moved from the stand to the chiropractor stage of the game.:confused:
 
Like you said, an industrial drafting table. Height adjustable with spring counterweighting. Most have been scrapped many years ago.
Nice idea.
 
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I don't know how many times i've had stuff standing up on edge because I needed to adjust things from both sides. Tuner alignments tend to be horrible like that. Extra annoying when its poorly balanced or doesn't have a good side support so you end up wedging stuff under the edge to keep it from flopping over. I like this idea, and it also doesn't lend itself to "flat surface disease" where every available surface just gets piled up with crap until there isn't a place to put anything.
 
gadget73 said:
I don't know how many times i've had stuff standing up on edge because I needed to adjust things from both sides. Tuner alignments tend to be horrible like that. Extra annoying when its poorly balanced or doesn't have a good side support so you end up wedging stuff under the edge to keep it from flopping over. I like this idea, and it also doesn't lend itself to "flat surface disease" where every available surface just gets piled up with crap until there isn't a place to put anything.
Click to expand...

Wow! You just described about every alignment I've done, plus the condition of my bench. The "flipper" is great. The most ambitious thing I've done was to bend two aluminum bars into a U-shape and bolt them to an old German Blaupunkt table radio so I could invert it without crushing the tubes and tuning mechanism.
 
Would it be better if it rotated about the other horizontal axis if you wanted to get to the front and back at the same time? That way you would not be leaning over the receiver to get to the back. I suppose you could move to the side of the table if you removed one of the tool shelves. Of course changing the axis would eliminate the benefit of working on the project at an angle to relieve back strain. Regardless it would essentially be the same idea. It's supposed to warm up a bit this week in the frozen wasteland so maybe I will get the board added for the angle stops.

I had a setback on clearing space for the workbench. I grabbed a FREE printer of CL. Xerox Phaser 7760. 11x17 full color at 1200dpi laser printer. It weighs 200 pounds! OMG. But it is taking up space where the workbench was going to go. It makes incredible photo quality prints and toner is good for 35,000 pages. Bye Bye inkjet. I won't miss you. Only problem is it does not seem to support 4x6 little prints. But I'm still learning. It will be nice to print schematics at 11x17. I tried viewing schematics on a screen but it is too hard to make comments. Paper rules.
 
I braved the Minnesota cold to add a angle stop board to the workbench.
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Yep, pretty much a hack job but it's cold these days.
I put mine on the right hand side of the bench because I am left handed. For those of you creatively suppressed normalized right handed folks, you might want it on the other side. I drilled just a few holds for now. More to follow as I get a feel for the proper working angle. I drilled two holes in the rotating part to allow for all the possible angles for each flip of the rotating part. Clue: drill all the holes in the plywood through the first hold in the rotating part then drill a hole through the plywood into the other side of the rotating part so everything lines up. Wow, that was an awful way to explain that. But whatever.

That's just a bolt with a threaded rod connector to make it easier to grip. Workshop scraps.

Stay safe.
 
Found this on the interweb:
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I bow to the superior construction and design.

https://retrovoltage.com/2013/07/15/1931-westinghouse-columaire-wr-8-grandfather-clock-radio/

I have a WR-8 that I stripped last fall but things froze up before I could get a new finish on it. Goals. . .
 
WOW, Now I'm totally outclassed. I suppose if I had a machine shop instead of a wood shop I would have come up with the same thing. ;)

Here is the video:

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I really like the idea of a bench top chassis stand because it does not take up any more floor space. But I think a bench top stand would end up being too high with a hifi sort of receiver. And I don't like the idea of standing all day to work on a project. I'm going to make a simple (and sturdy) turntable or lazy susan if I ever get around to recapping/repairing the Technics SA1000 that I recently acquired. At 87 pounds I don't think my flipping table will hold the weight and I know that amplifier is too big for the frame. So the turntable will let me put the receiver on its side and rotate to get to the front and back. but I will need to extend my work bench a few inches to it can even rotate.
 
Very nice.

I'm currently using a lazy Susan mounted to scrap wood, covered in a pice of terrycloth towel.

Between your rotisserie, and a lazy Susan access would be easy.
 
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