Assembly/Downdraft table

Eight years ago I took a small log cabin down, cut the logs up in to 4’ links, and burned them in an outside boiler. I could tell this cabin was at least 100 yeas old and had some dry rot… so firewood was a good use of the logs. But the floor joists looked to be in good shape. They where ruffsawn 2”x 8”s. So I took all the nails out and stacked them in my woods behind the house. I would use them “some day”…. Lol. After eight years I thought they where probably no good for anything but firewood. I pulled them out of the woods and to my surprise they were still solid. I power washed them and ran then through my jointer and planer. Wow, they look great. Hey, I thought, here is a cheap way to get that assembly/downdraft table started. So here’s what I built. I had a extra, older radial saw that I was not using and it was taking up valuable shop floor space, so I worked it into the project. The frame is built all from the old floor joists and the top is 3/4” MDF covered with 1/4” hardboard. I wrapped the sides with hard maple , put walnut plugs in to hide the screws, put a vice on the end , and made an ajustable fence for clamping up my glue-ups. I drilled ¼” holes in the top under the sanding disk for my downdraft table area, boxed up the bottom of the table under the radial saw and put a 4” dust port on it.. I took out the stops in the radial arm so I can spin it all the way around or out of the way. I have been using the bench now for about 5 months…. life is good. Working off a nice flat table top along with my clamping set-up makes assembling projects easy. Now there’s no more working off that not so flat shop floor. Lol

-- Rick