MatchFit Work Horse - 368

Hey folks, how you doing? Hopefully you're all having a great day today. I've got a fun project to share with you, a fun, useful project to share with you. It is a design collaboration with my friend Mike over at Taylor Toolworks and it's what I'm calling right there, the MatchFit Workhorse. You have the workholding options and stability of a workbench with the portability and form factor of a sawhorse. This is something that I think a lot of people, regardless of skill level, can benefit from this project. You don't need a crazy amount of tools. You don't need a CNC machine to make this. It is something that basically anybody getting into woodworking can make this with just a few power tools. I do have a full set of plans available for the project itself, the workhorse itself, as well as a bunch of accessories that are not shown in this video. This video is going to cover just the build of this. In the next video, I'll cover all of the accessories for it, but if you're interested in the set of plans that cover both the build as well as the accessories, I do have them available on my website. I do also have a coupon code to pass along with all of you to get all of the MatchFit accessories at a discount. I'll have that linked down in the description. That's it. Let's get into the build. 3. 2. 1. Go! 1. 2. 3. I can't do it! There's two main topics that I'd like to cover really quick in closing of this video. Number one is portability and its form factor. Number two is the ability as it compares to a workbench. So the portability of it, as you've seen, this thing breaks down and assembles really easy in this state. You take the bottom shelf off, flip it upside down, pull both leg assemblies out, and then you're left with four pieces that could easily stack on the back seat of a car if you needed to take it somewhere. You can lean it up against the wall if you just need to get it out of the way. You can transport this and store it in a disassembled state, so you don't need to leave this thing assembled at all times. No tools required. It's really, really convenient. Now as far as workholding goes, as far as the ability of this workbench goes, how does it compare to a traditional workbench? There's three main things that you want in a traditional woodworking workbench. You want workholding, you want stability, and you want mass so it doesn't move around. So first off, workholding ability. There's clamp locations everywhere. This utilizes the MatchFit Dovetail System, so you can take any one of these clamps and put it on any face of the workbench. These are all strategically placed, all these grooves. There's two on top that run its full length. On the back side, there is a front and a back. You can use it from either side. But on the back side, you have five vertical slots for vertical dovetails for clamping locations. On either end, you have two for clamp holding on the ends. And on the front, you have both vertical as well as horizontal locations. And of course, on the bottom side, like I said, all faces have these slots. You can utilize these as just storage locations for these clamps. So these are strategically placed for the workholding accessories that I'm going to cover in the next video. But if you don't want any of the accessories, there's plenty of options and plenty of capability for workholding. Holding material to the structure, that's a definite need in a workbench. The second definite need in a workbench is stability. You want something that's going to be solid and not rack all over the place as you're interacting with it with tools. If it's walking around on you or wiggling around on you as you're interacting, what that basically means is a very inefficient transfer of energy from the tool to the material causing you to work harder to complete that task. You don't want that. So that's where this nice solid joint comes into play. This non-mechanical fastener joint from the leg to the top. It's just wood to wood connection, no glue, slip fit for the portability. But here's the caveat. Over time, this is going to lose its precision because this is basically box store lumber that was kiln dried to a much higher moisture content than what you would typically want for furniture or basically anything that you would find at a woodworking lumber yard that's been kiln dried. So this will shrink. I know that's going to shrink and that's going to lose the precision of this joint. That's where that linear clamp on this bottom shelf comes into play because as this shrinks, you can adjust that clamp so it pushes the bottom of these legs out even further when you tighten that clamp. And what that'll do is it'll rack this joint nice and tight. So as this loosens up, you don't lose the precision of it. You just simply adjust that linear clamp and you'll still get a nice solid connection up here, a nice solid structure, whether it's day one or day 365. So stability of the structure, that's covered here. The last thing is mass. You don't want a workbench to walk around on you because you're losing that energy transfer the exact same way as if the workbench is racking on you. So that's the obvious disadvantage with something like this. So the easiest way to combat that is to just add weight to the bottom shelf. I have a 100 pound sandbag that I put on the bottom shelf and it really immobilized this more than I thought it would just with a 100 pound sandbag. Sand is very inexpensive. Where I live, you can buy a 50 pound sandbag for less than $4. Having a couple on hand to just throw on the bottom of something to immobilize it or to help immobilize it, it's a very inexpensive way to do that. I've got a 100 pound bag and that seemed to do the job just fine. I also have a 150 pound bag that I could add here to add even more weight so you can keep going if it's not enough. But bottom line, for all power tool use, I don't think you would need a sandbag at all. For basically hand planing, something aggressive is the only time that I think we're adding weight would be necessary to the bottom. When it comes to chiseling, you have a nice solid structure with these leg assemblies and a nice solid transfer of energy from this top, into the legs, into the ground. So you're not going to get any bounce back on this. This is very, very solid for hand tool work, which is really, really nice to see in something this size and something portable like this. If you're interested in the set of plans, I do have them available on my website. The plans will cover both the workhorse itself as well as all of the accessories that I'll cover in the next video. I do have a discount code that I can provide in the description, if you're watching this on YouTube or on my website, for a discount on all of the MatchFit hardware from Taylor Tools and I think that's it. So subscribe so you don't miss the next video where I cover all of the accessories. Go to my website, jaycustomcreations.com slash newsletter, so you don't miss anything that I publish. You guys take care, have a great day, and I'll talk to you in the next video. Oh my gosh, my foot's asleep.