My custom DIY watchmakers bench (pic heavy)

In my latest exercise of free will, I custom built a DIY watchmakers bench. This thread will go into the details of my build.


Background. I am new to watchmaking. I am new to watch collecting. I blame Mounjaro, my GLP1 medication. I started it in 2023 and was amazed at how much “food noise” went away which freed up so much more mental bandwidth. It also abruptly changed my addictive centers around food, so I shifted my focus away from Twinkies onto something far more interesting. Horology. Over the last two years, I am down 80lbs, and on my way towards CW21 certification. I am fortunate to have been born in Cincinnati in the 80s and have been unknowingly driving past the AWCI headquarters for the last 30+ years. I have been taking basically every class offered over the last two years.



My vocation is welding and fabrication. I am a CWI or certified welding inspector. I taught welding for a number of years. I am currently self-employed and hold contracts with many fields, namely aerospace, US defense prime contractors, oil and gas, and petrochemical. I am versed in construction and quality of AS, ASME, NAVSEA, AWS, API machined and welded components. I have set my sights on independent manufacture. My goal is to make my own wristwatch as a microbrand atelier under my fabrication brand IgneoFab (shameless plug www.igneofab.com) . I already build custom bespoke items in the luxury space. So I want to expand that and push myself as far as I can, I want to personally fabricate as much of the watch and movement as possible; case, dial, hands, full movement etc etc… . I feel that I am uniquely positioned to take this jump and make something novel. These watchmaking classes and this bench are stepping stones to that ultimate goal. Thanks for coming along.



The bench. My needs: to be able to service movements on par or better than my bench from class. Pic for reference of my Beco bench from AWCI. I also need a general purpose work desk for writing reports when I am still working my day job. Needs to be able to raise and lower. So this has to be a multiuse bench. And it is going to live in my living room of our home so it has to at least look nice.



I have it currently about 99% of the way there. I just want to tweak a couple things. But currently it is working well servicing my friends 1961 SMDV cal 550.



Construction: Some items are purchased, some are custom made. Depended on the level of difficulty I perceived while trying to reduce scope creep which I recognize myself being easily susceptible to. The bench is essentially 3 major components all fastened together. The frame, the top, and the integrated drawers.



For the bench top, I had a bunch of left over “uninstalled tractor trailer flooring” I had sourced for my garage workbench. This is all hardwood laminate, mostly maple I think, and comes in 12”x 1.5”x 12’ boards. I mimicked the layout from a standard watchmakers bench for the arm rests.



The frame. Purchased an UpLift industrial v2 4-leg/4-motor frame. linky This was the most costly bit of the whole project. A savvy pennypincher can find these identical components on AliX and Alibaba for a LOT less. But I didn’t know what I needed starting out and decided it was the easiest way to go. It is capable of 1000+lbs lift. The only downside is it only maxes out at like 52” height. I will address that below.



The cabinets. Durston brand name. Purchased from ofrei. Showed up broken. Not great quality. They sent free replacements. I hacked up the broken ones and attached to the bottom of the desk so they move with the desk heights. This is only thing I wish was better. The quality is VERY mid. But they work. I am not a carpenter or a cabinetmaker. So I have regrets here on these.



I will make specific posts walking through how I made this. But this is it for a first post. Feel free to ask questions, happy to answer them.

Parts day. Things showing up and laying out for assembly. The quality of the UpLift frame industrial line is rather quite good. This is NOT your typical walmart two post frame that wobbles when you blow on it. Its designed to lift a Harley. Stability is key especially at max height which is why I chose a HD four leg. Pretty dissapointed with these Dustons. I probably could have upcycled vintage pieces had had better quality. I contacted ofrei about both damaged units, explained what I planned to do, asked for a small discount or refund for the rework, they wanted to send full replacements. Long story short, I chopped up the broken ones to use and the replacements are sitting in the coat closet.

Frame assembled. But theres a problem. Max height isnt high enough (im 6'3) and low is far too low where I would use it. I need a solution. After a LOT of research, this is where watchmaking benches get it right. They raise higher than commercial off the shelf lifting tables. The goal of this build was to not have to spend $5-7k on a namebrand Swiss bench. Ill come back to this.

That is great! Thank you for sharing.

Lets chop up some wood. Again, I have left over "poor mans butcher block" in these tractor trailer boards. I got them from here :https://www.trailerdecking.com/Lami...Dry-Van-Keyboard-1-and-1-8th-4119?ProdID=4119

This is a biiig desk. I am using the max width of this frame at 72", I want an additional overhang on one side at about 14" so my span for the table top is going to be 86". I want it deep as well. I stack 3 12" boards together (36" depth) and rip 4" off one board for the whole length making it 32" deep. Sent it through a planer for minimal cleanup so they will glue up nicely.

I chose this size because it was the max width I could fit under the window in the great room but also work well on the backside of the couch. Leaving myself options while also maximizing the footprint.



retrospective note: Now that I have everything done... I kinda wish it was a little thicker. The span is 86" and at only 1.5" thick, its kinda flimsy. Wish it was 2". If I had to do one again at this size, I would have beefed it up with a 1" base or started with 2" butcher block.

Before I lay out the armrest landing. I need armrests. 3/4" maple sourced from a big box store. I just roughly and arbitrariliy chose a size based on my forearm and what felt right. I ended up at 14" length with 5" width. Radius on both ends was 2.5", so full circular cuts. these are just hand cut and hand sanded. They are not perfect and it ended up not being and issue. I then used these to lay out the watchmaking side of the bench for the armrest cutouts. Again, I picked what I thought would be most comfortable and compared to when my bench at class had, so my platform ended up at 10.50 wide, with a depth of 5.25 for the armrests. I then just put a 30deg angle on the reliefs. Then just jigsawed the pieces out. Pretty self explainatory here.

Some test fit photos. This will work well. Trying to be cognizant of where these leg motors live so I am trying to plan around them.

Monitor cassettes showed up. linky These were hard to find and dont really exist stateside. They are predominantly used in conference rooms or training centers. The all-in-one solutions usually have really outdated 1080 1:1 screens so I searched for just the motorized cassette. These are designed for a 22" monitor but I managed to squeeze 24" 16:10 displays in them. They are actually really trick and work really well. They are chain driven on BOTH sides, are daisy chainable, and wireless op. The top mount with just a flange plate. I need to figure out how to make them more rigid since I will be kicking them constantly. I also need to plan where these will live in the desk. This is stressfull because once I locate them, thats where they will always be. I need to tripple check location with the frame because of the cross bars and I dont want to have a fouling condition when I drop these in from the top. Before I cut holes though, lets glue to top up.

Lets make this desk frame taller. The veritical legs bolt into recesses in a skid type footer. I want about 10" higher than baseline. so a 10" rise at lowest and highest settings. Can I 3D print something robust enough? Maybe. Can I just use some wood beams put the frame on? Sure, but I have great danes that bang into stuff constantly. Lets go shipping at our local metal outet and see what we can fabricate. Hell yes.

I searched for box tubing that was close to the dimensions of the legs, but it is not a standard size, I would have had to make custom box tubing if I wanted to replicate the leg dimension. So instead....

My shopping list. Structural I-beam? Yes please.

A992/A572-50
Dim A: 3
Dim B: 2.330 5.7#
Dim C: .170
Length: Drop/Remnant 4x 8"

1/4 plate flat stock 2.5" x 28"
1/4 plate flat stock 1.5" x 24"
1" tubing 12"

Fit checks followed by arcs and sparks. Short circuit GMAW welded these with my Millermatic DVI (fancy 212 that will also run on 120v in a pinch) using er70s-6 wire and 75/25 shielding gas. Nothing fancy here, but robust. <slaps roof of car, "that aint goin NOWHERE">

Im not a carpenter. Im ALSO not a painter. Rattle can it is. Fit check confimed. Everything bolted up perfectly without being warped to hell. I'm happy with this alteration. UpLift will likely void my warranty now. But its TALL now. And I love it. Heights were: 21.5" and 47.5". And NOW they are: 31.5" and 57.5".

Hey, if it works, it works! that looks like a beautiful desk I would be happy to sit at. I never even thought about that as an option. Very nice.

Here is the armrest bracket on my bench at school. I cant seem to locate anything like this commercially available, so I need to make a set. Also of note, these arm rests are wrapped in alcantara. Which is a fantastic material for first day you use it. But they get really gross over time as they are just sponges for wrist cheese and hand oils. I will be doing leather.