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A mobile workbench is handy in a small shop—until you want it to stand still! After outfitting my bench with casters, I found that their locks didn’t prevent the bench from wiggling.
My solution is to add levers to each leg. They work like a cam. With the lever in the horizontal position, the bench rests on the casters. In the vertical position, the casters are raised off the floor about 1/4″, so the bench stays put, sitting on wide, flat feet.
Each cam is made from two pieces of 3/4″ plywood— the second piece is a spacer behind the lever for hand clearance. Cut the spacer’s shape to match the cam’s foot, to give the foot a larger area of contact with the floor. Attach each assembly with a bolt and lock nut.
—Mark Thiel
This workshop tip originally appeared in the April 2019 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine #245.
Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop. We may receive a commission from sales referred by our links; however, we have carefully selected these products for their usefulness and quality.
a clevis pin (eg, dowel) through the cam and into the actual bench leg when in the stationary position will keep it all 100 % solid.