This post is sponsored by The Home Depot. Have you have ever found yourself precariously balancing a workpiece on your leg while doing your best impersonation of a flamingo? If so, you probably know how important having a nice, stable work surface is. Contrary to popular belief, a workbench is more than just a place to dump tools, random parts and the half-eaten portion of your fourth donut. Our sponsor Home Depot recently sent us a Husky workbench and a Husky five drawer base cabinet to see if that might nudge us towards a slightly more organized garage. Join us as we walk through assembling and evaluating these clutter-cutters as we help determine if they’re worthy of a spot in your shop or garage.
The Husky Six Foot Heavy Duty Workbench
A garage or shop without a workbench is like a kitchen with no countertop. Or a Ferrari with no driver’s seat. Or a hot air balloon without a basket. Or, well, you get the idea – it’s important! One thing that some workbench makers tend to forget is that homeowners, tradespeople, makers, builders, etc. come in various shapes and heights. We also like to work on different types of projects. Between the varying heights and tasks, it’s nice to have a workbench with adjustable height.
Husky thoughtfully took this to heart when designing this workbench – it is equipped with numerous bolt holes that enable adjustable heights from 35″-42″ tall. The workbench uses eight pairs of nuts and bolts to secure the bench to your optimal height preferences. There is enough wrenching around involved in securing the legs and bench height that this probably isn’t something you’re going to adjust on the regular. While we’d like to see a motorized height adjustment in our dream workbench, strength and certainly retail price would suffer. That’s especially true given the inexpensive price point of this bench. Long story short, you’re not stuck with one set height and you can customize your workbench height according to your preferences.
A Foldable Husky Workbench?
Although height isn’t a quick adjustment once you have the Husky workbench set up, folding the legs down can be completed with the flip of four latches, each of which secures one corner of the leg assembly. Given that this fully assembled Husky Workbench weighs in at a robust 128 pounds, it’s not something you are likely to fold up and tote around like a lunchbox. However, if you have been eating your spinach (or you have a friend), it is feasible to move the workbench from one job site to another. Ours is not moving until our next earthquake, and even then, we expect movement to be minimal. . . the Husky workbench is very solid once leveled out.
On the Level
I have two primary experiences when it comes to leveling feet: 1) they don’t exist or, 2) they are tiny and hard to adjust. Happily, I can assure you the leveling feet on the Husky heavy duty workbench not only exist, but they are also large and easy to adjust. You can use a wrench to adjust the feet up or down, but I found them large enough to adjust by hand as long as you lift up a bit of the workbench weight as you make the adjustment. Either way works.
Stability is key when it comes to workbenches (you don’t want that donut toppling off, right?!), and one of the keys to stability is having a nice level installation. Since our garage floor is about as level as a small, Peruvian mountain range, I definitely had to do a little fine tuning on each corner of the Husky workbench. My trusty Stabila 2′ Level made quick work of adjusting each leveling foot. Each foot has a sizable footprint, making for a secure connection from workbench leg to terra firma. At about 24″ deep, I didn’t expect the bench to be very solid, however it definitely was after it was leveled out.
Don’t Fight the Power
Unless you’re a woodworking purist and only utilize hand tools, there’s a good chance you’ll be using power tools around this beefy workbench. Husky has wisely provided an alternative to crawling around under your workbench looking for that power outlet every time it’s time to plug in or unplug a tool. Tucked under the front overhang of the workbench top, you’ll find a grand total of four grounded outlets, plus a bonus two usb charging ports. Naturally, there is a single power cord you’ll still need to plug in initially, but after that, you’ll have juice readily accessible.
If you plan to use the power outlets regularly, and you plan to stow a base cabinet with drawers under your workbench (more on that below), you’ll probably want the drawers under the middle or right side of the bench so that any hanging power cables do not interfere with drawer operation. Although much of what we use is cordless these days, I still found the power outlets and usb ports very handy. After all, even cordless tools need a place to charge. And the usb ports add a handy spot to charge my smartphone which inevitably about to run out of juice in the garage.
Will the Husky Workbench Hold My Stuff?
If workbench equals “place to dump my tools,” you may be wondering how much the Husky Workbench can handle. According to Husky, it’s rated for 2,300 lbs. In practical terms, that’s the equivalent of one well-fed saltwater crocodile, or one athletic-build black rhinoceros. We were not able to verify the weight capacity because we didn’t have a croc or rhino handy at the shop, sorry. It’ll handle your tools though. And as many donuts as you can stack. The Husky workbench sports a lifetime limited frame warranty, and a 1-year limited warranty for wood top and power strip.
Husky Steel Garage 5-Drawer Base Cabinet
Now that we have established how useful the Husky workbench is, let’s see if we can suggest a way to keep the top of it free from clutter and ready for actual work. Like the Husky heavy duty workbench, the Husky 5-drawer cabinet comes securely packaged – in this case on a pallet. The Husky base cabinet comes largely assembled, with the exception of adding optional heavy-duty casters and some anti-tip brackets at the back.
Let’s Roll With It
If you’re dead set on your 5-drawer cabinet’s location, then the included heavy duty feet may be all you need. If you’d like the flexibility of wheeling your hundreds of pounds of tools around your garage or shop (thereby impersonating this guy), then the heavy duty casters are highly recommended. Thanks to threaded inserts and the included hardware for attaching them, installing the casters is relatively effortless (even more so if you cheat like we did with our Milwaukee cordless ratchet). Once in place, the casters provide smooth rolling capabilities and the very heavy-duty locks on two of the wheels stabilize your final location quite impressively.
The Husky 5-Drawer Base Cabinet is a Smooth Operator
As you might expect from the “5-Drawer” moniker, a total of five drawers will help you coral your tools and whatever else you might wish to stow away in your garage or shop. Vertical drawer capacity ranges from about 3″ high on the upper drawers on up to around 7″ on the cavernous bottom drawer. Each drawer comes lined with a Husky branded rubber mat, so you can rest your tools with they pampering they deserve after a hard day’s work. A single lock with two included keys can help keep unwanted hands off your prized tools.
The drawer mechanism feels solid and if you haven’t had a tool chest that features soft close functionality, you’re in for a treat. Simply fling the drawer closed, and within a few inches the drawer being closed, it will smoothly close completely. This is a really nice feature. Other drawers I have used require you to firmly push the drawer completely closed. That often meant the drawers would be left partially open, waiting to attack my thigh as I walked by the next time. These Husky drawers will take over the closing task for you once you give them a nudge in the right direction. I would rate the feel of the drawer slides as about mid to high end. They aren’t as rock-solid as some others I have used, but they are a dramatic step up from the flimsy drawer slides commonly used in low to mid price point cabinets. In case you were wondering, each drawer can hold up to 120+ pounds according to Husky. That’s a LOT of sockets!
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A Few Closing Thoughts
Overall dimensions are 28″ wide, 21.5″ deep and 36″ high. Husky also includes some anti-tip brackets for attaching the back of the cabinet to your wall to help prevent a dangerous tip-over scenario. In our case, I chose to install the Husky workbench in a high enough setting that I could store the Husky 5-Drawer base cabinet underneath it. As I mentioned in the earlier portion of the review, I installed the Husky 5-Drawer base cabinet under the middle of the workbench so that any cords plugged into the workbench power strip were not going to interfere with the drawer function. The only downside to tucking your Husky 5-Drawer base cabinet under your workbench is that you loose access to the smooth rubber wood top surface (unless you roll it out). Then again, you have a workbench, right?
I’m a big fan of the matte, powder coat finish on both the Husky heavy duty workbench and the 5-Drawer base cabinet. The finish not only looks good, but will likely minimize the appearance of any grime and/or abuse you subject it to. With a price point of well under $400 each for the workbench and the the 5-Drawer cabinet, we think Husky has put together an appealing product line for those wishing to cut the clutter in their shop or garage without breaking the bank. The Husky Heavy Duty Workbench and Husky 5-Drawer base cabinet are just two of their large line of garage storage and organization products.
Husky Workbench
Husky 5-Drawer Base Cabinet
I acknowledge that The Home Depot is partnering with Home Fixated in sponsored content. As a part of the sponsorship, Home Fixated is receiving compensation for the purpose of promoting The Home Depot. All expressed opinions and experiences are our own words. This post complies with the Word Of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) Ethics Code and applicable Federal Trade Commission guidelines.
What casters are those? The ones I got from HD do not fit my Husky Cabinet, the holes don’t line up at all.