BenchBUD Design Story
The idea for BenchBUD first came about when I went to the local cabinet shop. As a manufacturer myself, I like to see how other products are built. I connected with a local cabinet manufacturer to see how they made their kitchen cabinets.
While watching the employees build them, I noticed that they were constantly bending and leaning over. Different parts of the assembly process seemed to require the craftsman to work at different angles. There was a clear ergonomic problem and decided to create something to help.
I related with them. I find myself bending over all the time when doing my at-home projects. Often times, my back ends up hurting and it becomes less fun to finish whatever it is I'm working on.
My company has been manufacturing office furniture for 35 years. Thirteen of those have been spent focusing on creating standing desks for office, educational, and healthcare environments. RightAngle Products makes some of the most stable desks on the market, why not bring that into an at-home workshop or garage?
My years of experience led me to create an electric height adjustable workbench, called BenchBUD. It's something for the at-home woodworker, craftsman, or do-it-yourselfer.
I knew I wanted this work table to have a handful of key characteristics:
- Fit a variety of users
- Easy to use
- Durable (significant lifting capacity)
- Stable
- High quality table offered at a fair price
Then, my team and I produced our first prototype.
We took our original desk design and made significant changes: used the strongest spindle gear we could fit in our base frame, doubled the strength of the foot, and added another powerful motor.
The prototype was cycle tested using 450 lbs. This means that the table traveled up and down the full 19" travel range 7000 times with a load of 450 lbs. Needless to say, the BenchBUD is a beast.
The BenchBUD prototype was installed at the local cabinet shop.
We gave the cabinet shop the BenchBUD for 6 months. Our hope was to get feedback on its overall performance. Once the six months was up, the shop manager was thrilled with the workbench. He even shared his disappointment that we had to take it back to complete our post-test analysis.
Once we brought BenchBUD back to our factory, I looked inside to inspect how well the components held up after the full 6 months of heavy use. My team saw little to no wear of the gear or glide bearing. We were excited to see just how well BenchBUD held up.
BenchBUD is a versatile, heavy-duty work table that helps to eliminate back pain and makes completing your projects much easier. I believe BenchBUD will truly be your best BUD in the shop.