For the past few months I have been in the middle of a pseudo garage remodel. It isn’t a remodel in the strict sense, and in reality it started off as a way to add some storage while at the same time using up scrap boards that were taking up space. Like most projects, it snowballed (just a bit), and I found myself trimming out spots that I hadn’t planned on doing. Then, a shut-off valve with a slight leak failed, sprayed and leaked large amounts of water on my remaining scrap wood (and some valuable wood as well), and my project graduated to replacing copper with Pex, and using store bought wood rather than scrap.

But, a minor garage rehab isn’t really the purpose of this post, it is only the backstory which led me to this point.

When I went to the home center to pick up the rest of the wood needed to finish up the trim/storage, I purchased several 1x10x8 pine boards, some of which I used in full, and the others which I ripped into several boards. While working on these boards on the traditional workbench I found the experience to be miserable. This misery wasn’t the result of the construction of my workbench, which is just fine, but where the bench is located, which is up against the back wall of the garage. During this stretch of two or three weekends, I fully noticed for the first time in the 13 years since I constructed a traditional workbench that placing this bench up against a wall reduces its functionality by at least half, and perhaps more depending upon exactly what type of work is being performed. Had I been able to move the bench to the center of the garage it would have helped a great deal, but this was out of the question.

As I mentioned, I constructed my bench thirteen years ago, and though there have been a few changes here and there, it is still essentially the same bench now as it was the day that I finished it. The bench base is made from (8) 2x6x8 fir boards (leg assemblies), (3) 2x4x8 fir boards (for the bottom shelf), and (1) 2x10x8 fir board used for the cross stretchers. The bench top is made from (4) 1x24x72 edge glue pine panels. With this in mind, a reasonable guess of the weight of the basic bench can be made: approximately 220lbs-230lbs. This of course does not include the weight of the vise hardware or chop, or all of the stuff that is sitting on the bottom shelf, which pushes the bench over the 300lb mark. This pretty much makes moving the bench around the garage extremely difficult at best.

As I have already exhausted every other possibility of placing  my traditional workbench in an optimal spot in the garage while also keeping the garage as a functional place to park a car, I decided that I was going to purchase a portable workbench, in the case a WORX Pegasus folding worktable and sawhorse. Before I go on, this post is not a commercial for the WORX corporation, or whatever the name of the parent corporation happens to be. I don’t receive compensation from WORX to hawk their products and quite frankly I don’t care if anyone reading this purchases anything from them. That being said, I like the product, a lot, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this post, and because I am not selling anything and therefore there are no conflicts of interest, I would have no problem if WORX sent me an email and said: Thanks for saying nice things! Here is a free bench!!

And, for the record, this is hardly the first portable workbench I have owned or used. I had a Black and Decker Workmate for years…I have several foldable saw horses, etc. This was no epiphany in the sense that I discovered something new…..but I did come to a new realization…

Firstly, I was very, very pleasantly surprised by the overall sturdiness of the WORX product. It was solid, meaning I could sit on it, shove it, and pound on it and it didn’t move. But the most pleasant aspect was setting up the bench in the middle of my garage and having access to all four sides of whatever I was working on, which in one case was a 1×10, and in another case was a piece of copper pipe that I was foolishly trying to repair (hence the use of Pex). Regardless, working in the middle of the garage floor, I no longer felt confined. At one point, I had to saw several boards to length, so I broke out the powered miter saw, clamped it easily to the portable bench…and then something else dawned on me: It was a nice day outside!! Why do this in the garage when I can easily carry the portable bench onto the lawn and make the cuts there? No mess, and I get some fresh air!! Win win! It was at this point when I had my first real “Aha!” moment.

Because several of the boards were ripped on the table saw, I wanted to plane the saw marks from the edges, so I simply clamped the boards perpendicular to the portable bench…which is simple to do with the included clamping set up…and planed off the saw marks…and it worked beautifully. There was no rocking, or shifting, or what have you. For years, the prevailing wisdom has been that a very heavy bench is needed in order to saw and plane. On the 35lb portable bench I had no issues sawing or edge planing. I even used a moulding plane on a board…just to try it…and it worked fine. To continue the experiments, I clamped a router table to the bench, though I haven’t used it in a decade, and it worked just fine. I used a traditional bench hook on it…worked just fine. More importantly, I was doing all of this outside because the portable aspect of the bench enabled me to work, within reason, wherever I wanted to work.

Here’s another point…this thing is set up to be modular. I can easily put two of these benches together and create a 2ft x 5ft worktop that will compact into the space of a folding metal chair when I’m done using it, and I’m still in at under $300 in cost. Or, I can put three of these things together and have a full size workbench that with a few minor modifications will function basically as well as a traditional workbench in most aspects….and I can work in the middle of my garage, or my driveway, or on the lawn…and fold it all up and put it away when I’m finished working…and I’m only out $420…and I don’t have to purchase them all at once if I don’t want to..

A portable bench doesn’t just allow us to work where we want to work, it is also better suited to the other projects that a homeowner might encounter: plumbing projects, painting, grinding, staining, oiling and lubing…stuff that most woodworkers try to avoid doing on their traditional bench if possible. I need to clamp and stain a board and I don’t want the fumes in my garage…or maybe I want to spray paint an old toolbox….this bench does the job.

Most importantly to those of us who still enjoy certain traditional aspects of woodworking, this bench allows for such work. Hand sawing, hand planing, chopping, etc, can all be performed on this bench. The bench can also be easily modified with a basic plywood top if such a thing is concerning…a top that can be removed and easily stored with the folded up bench.

I’m sure that this all sounds like heresy to some folks out there who live and die by their traditional tools, and workbenches, and workshops. I’m not attempting to reach those people. I’m talking to those homeowners and/or woodworkers out there with a garage that is used as a garage, or those with a tiny basement, or a spare bedroom, or perhaps not even those options. This WORX portable bench is a viable option, and I am sure there are other products out there that will work as well, because this isn’t meant to be a commercial for one particular product, but a challenge to a prevailing idea that for many is not a viable option.

Once again, I’m not going to get into all of the features of this product because this isn’t meant to be a commercial or even a review. I am saying that after 13 years of being a home woodworker, and not having a real workshop, I have come to the conclusion that a traditional workbench, for many people in the same situation that I am in, is a complete waste of space. Don’t misunderstand me, I love my workbench and I am proud of it. I’m not disparaging traditional woodworking benches, I am saying that for the home woodworker without a dedicated workshop, there are many better options out there than a giant, heavy table that takes up a lot of space and can cost a lot of time and money to construct.

For the past few months I have been in the middle of a pseudo garage remodel. It isn’t a remodel in the strict sense, and in reality it started off as a way to add some storage while at the same time using up scrap boards that were taking up space. Like most projects, it snowballed (just a bit), and I found myself trimming out spots that I hadn’t planned on doing. Then, a shut-off valve with a slight leak failed, sprayed and leaked large amounts of water on my remaining scrap wood (and some valuable wood as well), and my project graduated to replacing copper with Pex, and using store bought wood rather than scrap.

But, a minor garage rehab isn’t really the purpose of this post, it is only the backstory which led me to this point.

When I went to the home center to pick up the rest of the wood needed to finish up the trim/storage, I purchased several 1x10x8 pine boards, some of which I used in full, and the others which I ripped into several boards. While working on these boards on the traditional workbench I found the experience to be miserable. This misery wasn’t the result of the construction of my workbench, which is just fine, but where the bench is located, which is up against the back wall of the garage. During this stretch of two or three weekends, I fully noticed for the first time in the 13 years since I constructed a traditional workbench that placing this bench up against a wall reduces its functionality by at least half, and perhaps more depending upon exactly what type of work is being performed. Had I been able to move the bench to the center of the garage it would have helped a great deal, but this was out of the question.

As I mentioned, I constructed my bench thirteen years ago, and though there have been a few changes here and there, it is still essentially the same bench now as it was the day that I finished it. The bench base is made from (8) 2x6x8 fir boards (leg assemblies), (3) 2x4x8 fir boards (for the bottom shelf), and (1) 2x10x8 fir board used for the cross stretchers. The bench top is made from (4) 1x24x72 edge glue pine panels. With this in mind, a reasonable guess of the weight of the basic bench can be made: approximately 220lbs-230lbs. This of course does not include the weight of the vise hardware or chop, or all of the stuff that is sitting on the bottom shelf, which pushes the bench over the 300lb mark. This pretty much makes moving the bench around the garage extremely difficult at best.

As I have already exhausted every other possibility of placing  my traditional workbench in an optimal spot in the garage while also keeping the garage as a functional place to park a car, I decided that I was going to purchase a portable workbench, in the case a WORX Pegasus folding worktable and sawhorse. Before I go on, this post is not a commercial for the WORX corporation, or whatever the name of the parent corporation happens to be. I don’t receive compensation from WORX to hawk their products and quite frankly I don’t care if anyone reading this purchases anything from them. That being said, I like the product, a lot, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this post, and because I am not selling anything and therefore there are no conflicts of interest, I would have no problem if WORX sent me an email and said: Thanks for saying nice things! Here is a free bench!!

And, for the record, this is hardly the first portable workbench I have owned or used. I had a Black and Decker Workmate for years…I have several foldable saw horses, etc. This was no epiphany in the sense that I discovered something new…..but I did come to a new realization…

Firstly, I was very, very pleasantly surprised by the overall sturdiness of the WORX product. It was solid, meaning I could sit on it, shove it, and pound on it and it didn’t move. But the most pleasant aspect was setting up the bench in the middle of my garage and having access to all four sides of whatever I was working on, which in one case was a 1×10, and in another case was a piece of copper pipe that I was foolishly trying to repair (hence the use of Pex). Regardless, working in the middle of the garage floor, I no longer felt confined. At one point, I had to saw several boards to length, so I broke out the powered miter saw, clamped it easily to the portable bench…and then something else dawned on me: It was a nice day outside!! Why do this in the garage when I can easily carry the portable bench onto the lawn and make the cuts there? No mess, and I get some fresh air!! Win win! It was at this point when I had my first real “Aha!” moment.

Because several of the boards were ripped on the table saw, I wanted to plane the saw marks from the edges, so I simply clamped the boards perpendicular to the portable bench…which is simple to do with the included clamping set up…and planed off the saw marks…and it worked beautifully. There was no rocking, or shifting, or what have you. For years, the prevailing wisdom has been that a very heavy bench is needed in order to saw and plane. On the 35lb portable bench I had no issues sawing or edge planing. I even used a moulding plane on a board…just to try it…and it worked fine. To continue the experiments, I clamped a router table to the bench, though I haven’t used it in a decade, and it worked just fine. I used a traditional bench hook on it…worked just fine. More importantly, I was doing all of this outside because the portable aspect of the bench enabled me to work, within reason, wherever I wanted to work.

Here’s another point…this thing is set up to be modular. I can easily put two of these benches together and create a 2ft x 5ft worktop that will compact into the space of a folding metal chair when I’m done using it, and I’m still in at under $300 in cost. Or, I can put three of these things together and have a full size workbench that with a few minor modifications will function basically as well as a traditional workbench in most aspects….and I can work in the middle of my garage, or my driveway, or on the lawn…and fold it all up and put it away when I’m finished working…and I’m only out $420…and I don’t have to purchase them all at once if I don’t want to..

A portable bench doesn’t just allow us to work where we want to work, it is also better suited to the other projects that a homeowner might encounter: plumbing projects, painting, grinding, staining, oiling and lubing…stuff that most woodworkers try to avoid doing on their traditional bench if possible. I need to clamp and stain a board and I don’t want the fumes in my garage…or maybe I want to spray paint an old toolbox….this bench does the job.

Most importantly to those of us who still enjoy certain traditional aspects of woodworking, this bench allows for such work. Hand sawing, hand planing, chopping, etc, can all be performed on this bench. The bench can also be easily modified with a basic plywood top if such a thing is concerning…a top that can be removed and easily stored with the folded up bench.

I’m sure that this all sounds like heresy to some folks out there who live and die by their traditional tools, and workbenches, and workshops. I’m not attempting to reach those people. I’m talking to those homeowners and/or woodworkers out there with a garage that is used as a garage, or those with a tiny basement, or a spare bedroom, or perhaps not even those options. This WORX portable bench is a viable option, and I am sure there are other products out there that will work as well, because this isn’t meant to be a commercial for one particular product, but a challenge to a prevailing idea that for many is not a viable option.

Once again, I’m not going to get into all of the features of this product because this isn’t meant to be a commercial or even a review. I am saying that after 13 years of being a home woodworker, and not having a real workshop, I have come to the conclusion that a traditional workbench, for many people in the same situation that I am in, is a complete waste of space. Don’t misunderstand me, I love my workbench and I am proud of it. I’m not disparaging traditional woodworking benches, I am saying that for the home woodworker without a dedicated workshop, there are many better options out there than a giant, heavy table that takes up a lot of space and can cost a lot of time and money to construct.