How to Make Fold Away Tool Storage _ I Like To Make Stuff

**Customizing an Existing Table for a Home Workshop**

It's always exciting to start a new project, and for this DIY enthusiast, that project was taking an existing table and turning it into a custom workshop solution. The process began with a simple idea - to show that with some creativity and modification, an existing table could be transformed to meet the needs of a home workshop.

The first step in the project involved assessing the table's layout and identifying areas for improvement. The creator noted that one of the main challenges was the balance on some of the heavier tools, but a clever solution was soon found. A small piece of wood was attached to a single pivot point, allowing the tool to be easily locked into position. This clever solution ensured that the weight of the tool would not cause any issues with the table's stability.

Another important consideration in the project was the grain direction on the table surface. The creator realized that if they didn't take this into account, they may end up getting a crack in the wood due to the pressure from the weight. To avoid this, the creator made sure to have the grain running in the correct direction, which would help prevent any potential damage.

The next step involved adding some functionality to the table. The creator decided to add a work surface that could also be used for tools. This required attaching a scroll saw to the table, and fortunately, it was found that this particular saw actually held its cord in place, making it easy to plug in and use.

One of the unique features of the new workshop setup was the addition of a vise. The creator had always wanted a vise in their shop, but hated the idea of having one on a table, taking up valuable space. To solve this problem, the creator decided to attach a vise to another panel that would flip up when needed. This required some careful consideration to ensure that it wouldn't conflict with any other tools or surfaces.

The creation process also involved some trial and error, particularly with the bolts used to secure the vise in place. The original bolts were found to be too short, so a new set was obtained to provide enough clearance for washers. This attention to detail ensured that the vise would be secure and durable.

**Testing and Evaluation**

Once the vise had been attached, the creator decided it was time to test it out. However, before doing so, they took a moment to note that using small screws in the plywood may not have provided enough support for the weight of the tool. To avoid any potential issues, the creator planned to replace these screws with through bolts and nuts at a later stage.

With the vise securely attached, the creator proceeded to tighten it down and test its functionality. The result was a smooth operation that exceeded their expectations.

**Conclusion**

The final result of this project was an incredibly functional workshop setup that met all the needs of the creator. By taking an existing table and modifying it to suit their requirements, they were able to create a space that would be used for years to come. The customizations made to the table included a scroll saw, vise, and other features that catered to the specific needs of a home workshop.

The project served as a great example of how an existing piece of equipment can be transformed into something new and useful with a little bit of creativity and hard work. For anyone looking to create their own workshop solution, this DIY enthusiast's approach is definitely worth considering.

**Additional Resources**

For those interested in creating their own workshop setup or modifying an existing table, there are plenty of resources available online. The creator has plans for inexpensive tables that can be modified into workshop solutions, which can be found on their website or YouTube channel.

Joining the Maker Alliance is also a great way to get exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the creator's projects and other perks. With early access to videos, product discounts, and regular video hangouts with the team, it's an excellent opportunity for DIY enthusiasts to connect with like-minded individuals and stay up-to-date on the latest creative projects.

The Discord server is another great resource for connecting with others who share similar interests and ideas. Whether you're a seasoned DIY enthusiast or just starting out, the Maker Alliance community is sure to provide valuable insights and inspiration for your next project.

**About the Creator**

This article was written by [Creator's Name], a passionate DIY enthusiast and maker. With a focus on creative problem-solving and practicality, they have developed a range of projects that cater to the needs of home workshops and makerspaces. When not working on their latest project, you can find them sharing tips and advice with others online or participating in various maker communities.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey I'm Bob and I like to make stuff today I'm going to show you how to make a simple workbench way better a couple of years ago when I moved into the shop one of the first projects I did and one of the first videos was making these work tables I made several tables that would all snap together to make one large surface or they could break apart and roll around individually I made these in two by four sizes and a big work table that was four by four one of the problems with having a bunch of storage down here though is that I've got a bunch of tools that don't actually have anywhere to live and I have to pick them up put them on a table to use them so today we're gonna make some flip up panels that I can mount the tools to they can flip up on top of the table to use them and then I can put them away when I'm done if you need some simple work tables for your shop these are a great solution you should definitely go back to watch the video to see how I made them we've also got some plans available for them but they're really basic 2x4 construction on this version I actually added a flip top with some storage inside of that I don't use it a whole lot I use it on certain tables but not on this one in particular so I think for this particular video I'm gonna go ahead and screw down the top so it can stay in place then I'm gonna be adding these panels and the hinges out here now unfortunately by adding stuff out here that's gonna work against the whole magnet solution for attaching the tables together but that's okay this particular table will just stand alone since I screwed down the top we don't really need this to be an open space so I'm going to go ahead and take out this one piece of MDF just so we have a little bit more clearance in this section for tools the first tool we're going to try to mount is this pocket hole jig this needs to lay across the table like this facing the what's going to be the front and so we need to lay it down inside the table like that so it can flip all the way over and lay into that position so we're gonna make a plate of wood that's a little bit bigger than this one that will work on this side of it the whole panel is going to hang right here and the hinges need something to be screwed into not just this MDF so I've cut down a strip of 2x4 to fill this gap we're gonna screw this into the structure of the table really strongly and then that will be our mounting point so this panel is going to hang right here and needs to hinge all the way over and to do that we're going to take two regular hinges and put them together I'm going to lay these on top of each other the holes don't line up but they do line up enough to be able to weld them together and obviously if you don't have a welder you can still do this you could put a bolt and a nut to connect these you could use some pop rivets there's a bunch of different ways you could connect these but since I have a welder I'm gonna weld them quick disclaimer this is covered in zinc and if you weld that it lets go some gases that you don't need to breathe make sure you have ventilation going or you do it outside I've got this panel in place and the big thing that makes this work is this hinge this is going to attach on the top here and fold down and then attach here to the table this gives it two different ranges of motion so the top panel can fold over this way and then the entire thing can fold down that way and roll flat so I'm gonna put these in place pre-drill the holes and screw them in also to put these hinges on I'm using a self centering bit it has a little spring-loaded collar so it will Center itself when you drill the hole alright let's try it out now what's this has some weight on it it will definitely fall down easier and depending on where the weight is balanced on the bottom it may end up sticking out like this but we'll fix that later on I'm going to move this tool over to this new panel and the only thing you have to keep in mind about placement is that you have to have enough room up here on this end to equal the overhang here you don't want any tool sitting in this space that's going to run into whatever supporting on this end I already measured this this is a little over 2 inches so I just have to make sure I go with 2 inches in I should be good now when we're ready to use this tool just flip it up use it then when we're done just flip it back over so now we're going to do pretty much the same thing for all the other tools now we're ready to mount this tool and this is a leather sewing machine there's no electric to this one it's crank driven so you have to be able to turn this crank and it makes the whole sewing machine work this is also expected to have a stand and so since it doesn't in this case I'm actually going to have to build this off the surface a little bit up high enough that I can turn this crank by hand and it'll hold the weight I've got this piece setting on here and I didn't realize when I put these two by fours in that the two holes that I have to use for mounting you're actually kind of close together on this plane and it puts one of the holes close to the edge one of the holes close to where the pieces meet so I'm gonna have to slide this off axis a little bit or rotate it so that both holes are over actually meaty parts of the wood and aren't gonna split out so I think I'm gonna end up having to turn this machine a little bit more than I wanted to originally but just kind of part of it this thing is really heavy so let's try it out make sure it works sweet it totally works I knew that the balance would be kind of an issue on some of these heavier tools but it's okay because I think we've got a way to easily lock it into position we're gonna put a really small piece of wood on a single pivot point right here so once we push the tool into place we can rock this over and it'll lock it right there I've got this little spinning piece in here and it totally works but I also just realize that the grain is actually running this direction and with the weight pushing against one side eventually I may get a crack right here so if you make one of these just maybe make the grain run this way I've got a quarter 20 bolt that's going to go up here with a lock nut on top of it to hold it in place but I also have to countersink on the bottom so that the bolt head will be flush on this side now we've got the scroll saw in place works pretty well and luckily this one actually holds the cord so once I get it up here I can plug it in I've got one more space here for a tool I've always wanted a vise in this side of the shop but I kind of hate the fact that you have to put a vise on a table and it takes up that space whether you need it or not so I'm gonna put a big vise on another panel that'll flip up it'll go right here we picked up a vise and I've got it placed on this board where I think it needs to go and I wanted to explain about why I have it where I have it when you're laying this out you have to worry about this thickness right here this entire panel is gonna fold over so this is unusable space that translates to this space right here now this tool in particular needs a little bit extra consideration because this has to spin so I've got it hanging off the side of the table but then the entire thing can spin on this board so when you have that in its longest orientation you have to make sure that it doesn't conflict with the space that's eaten up here so I think this is a good place to do it we're going to bolt it down just like we did everything else okay that's not going to work ideally you would want to put washers underneath these nuts to preserve the wood around this but these bolts that I have are just a little bit too short so I may have to swap them out later so that I have enough space to add a washer got the vise mounted it should be ready to go but I did want to point one thing out before we test it I've used some kind of small screws into this plywood now over time those may not be enough to hold the weight of this and we may have to replace those with a through bolt but we'll just do it like we did everything else countersink on the backside and use a bolt and a nut all right I'm going to tighten this thing down and we'll try it out all right it's quick and dirty it's not terribly pretty from the outside but look at how much functionality of this table has now and then of course on this side we've still got all this open space we could put a shop vac down here to get dust collection some of these tools you get to store other stuff down here the main point of this project even though it was really simple was to show that you can take an existing table and totally customize it to make your shop better there you go it's an extremely simple project that honestly just boils down to modifying some hinges being able to have a work surface that can also have tools mounted on it and then those tools can hide away can be a huge help and of course if you want to make these specific tables we do have some really inexpensive plans for them on I like to make stuff calm if this video gave you any ideas for improving your workshop I would love to hear about it let me know down in the comments we've got tons of other types of projects that you'll also may want to check out and if you're not subscribed be sure to do that as well that's it for this one thanks for watching see you next time I wanted to interrupt our normal blooper reel this week to show you our new in screen but also more importantly to officially announce the maker alliance the maker alliance is a group of people who get exclusive behind-the-scenes access to me and the whole team and I like to make stuff by joining the maker alliance you get early access to videos and exclusive videos you get product discounts we have a discord server we do monthly video hangouts and a bunch of other stuff we've already got a huge community of people over there and we would love for you to join us if you want to find out more hit the link right therehey I'm Bob and I like to make stuff today I'm going to show you how to make a simple workbench way better a couple of years ago when I moved into the shop one of the first projects I did and one of the first videos was making these work tables I made several tables that would all snap together to make one large surface or they could break apart and roll around individually I made these in two by four sizes and a big work table that was four by four one of the problems with having a bunch of storage down here though is that I've got a bunch of tools that don't actually have anywhere to live and I have to pick them up put them on a table to use them so today we're gonna make some flip up panels that I can mount the tools to they can flip up on top of the table to use them and then I can put them away when I'm done if you need some simple work tables for your shop these are a great solution you should definitely go back to watch the video to see how I made them we've also got some plans available for them but they're really basic 2x4 construction on this version I actually added a flip top with some storage inside of that I don't use it a whole lot I use it on certain tables but not on this one in particular so I think for this particular video I'm gonna go ahead and screw down the top so it can stay in place then I'm gonna be adding these panels and the hinges out here now unfortunately by adding stuff out here that's gonna work against the whole magnet solution for attaching the tables together but that's okay this particular table will just stand alone since I screwed down the top we don't really need this to be an open space so I'm going to go ahead and take out this one piece of MDF just so we have a little bit more clearance in this section for tools the first tool we're going to try to mount is this pocket hole jig this needs to lay across the table like this facing the what's going to be the front and so we need to lay it down inside the table like that so it can flip all the way over and lay into that position so we're gonna make a plate of wood that's a little bit bigger than this one that will work on this side of it the whole panel is going to hang right here and the hinges need something to be screwed into not just this MDF so I've cut down a strip of 2x4 to fill this gap we're gonna screw this into the structure of the table really strongly and then that will be our mounting point so this panel is going to hang right here and needs to hinge all the way over and to do that we're going to take two regular hinges and put them together I'm going to lay these on top of each other the holes don't line up but they do line up enough to be able to weld them together and obviously if you don't have a welder you can still do this you could put a bolt and a nut to connect these you could use some pop rivets there's a bunch of different ways you could connect these but since I have a welder I'm gonna weld them quick disclaimer this is covered in zinc and if you weld that it lets go some gases that you don't need to breathe make sure you have ventilation going or you do it outside I've got this panel in place and the big thing that makes this work is this hinge this is going to attach on the top here and fold down and then attach here to the table this gives it two different ranges of motion so the top panel can fold over this way and then the entire thing can fold down that way and roll flat so I'm gonna put these in place pre-drill the holes and screw them in also to put these hinges on I'm using a self centering bit it has a little spring-loaded collar so it will Center itself when you drill the hole alright let's try it out now what's this has some weight on it it will definitely fall down easier and depending on where the weight is balanced on the bottom it may end up sticking out like this but we'll fix that later on I'm going to move this tool over to this new panel and the only thing you have to keep in mind about placement is that you have to have enough room up here on this end to equal the overhang here you don't want any tool sitting in this space that's going to run into whatever supporting on this end I already measured this this is a little over 2 inches so I just have to make sure I go with 2 inches in I should be good now when we're ready to use this tool just flip it up use it then when we're done just flip it back over so now we're going to do pretty much the same thing for all the other tools now we're ready to mount this tool and this is a leather sewing machine there's no electric to this one it's crank driven so you have to be able to turn this crank and it makes the whole sewing machine work this is also expected to have a stand and so since it doesn't in this case I'm actually going to have to build this off the surface a little bit up high enough that I can turn this crank by hand and it'll hold the weight I've got this piece setting on here and I didn't realize when I put these two by fours in that the two holes that I have to use for mounting you're actually kind of close together on this plane and it puts one of the holes close to the edge one of the holes close to where the pieces meet so I'm gonna have to slide this off axis a little bit or rotate it so that both holes are over actually meaty parts of the wood and aren't gonna split out so I think I'm gonna end up having to turn this machine a little bit more than I wanted to originally but just kind of part of it this thing is really heavy so let's try it out make sure it works sweet it totally works I knew that the balance would be kind of an issue on some of these heavier tools but it's okay because I think we've got a way to easily lock it into position we're gonna put a really small piece of wood on a single pivot point right here so once we push the tool into place we can rock this over and it'll lock it right there I've got this little spinning piece in here and it totally works but I also just realize that the grain is actually running this direction and with the weight pushing against one side eventually I may get a crack right here so if you make one of these just maybe make the grain run this way I've got a quarter 20 bolt that's going to go up here with a lock nut on top of it to hold it in place but I also have to countersink on the bottom so that the bolt head will be flush on this side now we've got the scroll saw in place works pretty well and luckily this one actually holds the cord so once I get it up here I can plug it in I've got one more space here for a tool I've always wanted a vise in this side of the shop but I kind of hate the fact that you have to put a vise on a table and it takes up that space whether you need it or not so I'm gonna put a big vise on another panel that'll flip up it'll go right here we picked up a vise and I've got it placed on this board where I think it needs to go and I wanted to explain about why I have it where I have it when you're laying this out you have to worry about this thickness right here this entire panel is gonna fold over so this is unusable space that translates to this space right here now this tool in particular needs a little bit extra consideration because this has to spin so I've got it hanging off the side of the table but then the entire thing can spin on this board so when you have that in its longest orientation you have to make sure that it doesn't conflict with the space that's eaten up here so I think this is a good place to do it we're going to bolt it down just like we did everything else okay that's not going to work ideally you would want to put washers underneath these nuts to preserve the wood around this but these bolts that I have are just a little bit too short so I may have to swap them out later so that I have enough space to add a washer got the vise mounted it should be ready to go but I did want to point one thing out before we test it I've used some kind of small screws into this plywood now over time those may not be enough to hold the weight of this and we may have to replace those with a through bolt but we'll just do it like we did everything else countersink on the backside and use a bolt and a nut all right I'm going to tighten this thing down and we'll try it out all right it's quick and dirty it's not terribly pretty from the outside but look at how much functionality of this table has now and then of course on this side we've still got all this open space we could put a shop vac down here to get dust collection some of these tools you get to store other stuff down here the main point of this project even though it was really simple was to show that you can take an existing table and totally customize it to make your shop better there you go it's an extremely simple project that honestly just boils down to modifying some hinges being able to have a work surface that can also have tools mounted on it and then those tools can hide away can be a huge help and of course if you want to make these specific tables we do have some really inexpensive plans for them on I like to make stuff calm if this video gave you any ideas for improving your workshop I would love to hear about it let me know down in the comments we've got tons of other types of projects that you'll also may want to check out and if you're not subscribed be sure to do that as well that's it for this one thanks for watching see you next time I wanted to interrupt our normal blooper reel this week to show you our new in screen but also more importantly to officially announce the maker alliance the maker alliance is a group of people who get exclusive behind-the-scenes access to me and the whole team and I like to make stuff by joining the maker alliance you get early access to videos and exclusive videos you get product discounts we have a discord server we do monthly video hangouts and a bunch of other stuff we've already got a huge community of people over there and we would love for you to join us if you want to find out more hit the link right there\n"