My shop is small, and my main work area is a countertop that I built above a bank of cabinets. So any way that I can expand my work area in the shop is a blessing. The pull-out worksurface you see here fits squarely into that category.
As you can see, the worksurface is simple to make and can be put together with scrap materials. It consists of five parts: a plywood panel, two runners that allow the worksurface to slide in and out from under the counter, and a pair of stops that prevent it from being pulled out completely. The most time-consuming part of the project is shaping the runners. Each one has a groove cut in it to capture the plywood panel. I didn’t want the panel to sag when fully opened, so I fine-tuned my dado blade to get a smooth, sliding fit with the 3⁄4" plywood. Once that’s done, you can cut the panel to size, add a hole for pulling it out, and screw on a stop.
Now find the right spot in your shop for the worksurface, and screw the second stop to the underside of the counter as shown in the drawings. Then you can position the whole assembly under your counter and drive screws into the runners.
