Centipede Work Table Review

The Centipede Work Table has many legs and loves. This is supposed to be a tool review, but first, I have to explain all the things it’s better at than being a just a pro job site tool.

I have two of them, the 4×8 and the 2×4 models. I set them up on big jobs, from a month long bathroom and room remodel, to small projects, like installing insulation.

Here are a few thoughts on this useful tool.

It’s an easily stored, easily opened, easily closed, big, flat and stable surface you can use just about anywhere. You need to provide the table surface, such as a sheet of plywood. The Centipede Tools Table, which stores nicely in its own bag, does the rest. The price isn’t bad either. It’s about $50 for the 2×4 and $150 for the 4×8 depending on where you buy it.

Try it on at the campground, in the backyard or on the beach! Open it up and use it to prep and serve food, store stuff off the ground or lay out gear for an event. This can be used anytime you’d typically jury rig some kind of “table” that doesn’t really do the job.

Home Improvement DIY

Let me start this section with a message to DIYers and gardeners, work tables make life and projects umpteen times less frustrating.

It would take me an hour to go through all the reasons why this product makes life easier. Work tables provide everything from a stable place to cut, measure, sand and assemble to a place for papers, coffee cups, plants and tools and water bottles.

DIYers face a lot of challenges on projects and constantly trying to find a stable place to work shouldn’t be one of them. For example, you share a work space like a garage with a million other things like the car and kid gear, there’s probably little room for a bench. If you go the Centipede route, it doesn’t really matter because you can set up and break down your ‘bench’ anytime and anywhere you want. Or, set it up and leave it there. It takes up less room than a shop vacuum when collapsed. You could even hang it from the storage bag’s strap on the wall.

Pro Job Site

Professional contractors can be (we are, whom am I kidding) a finicky bunch. Each of us has spent many years developing our unique styles and preferences for how we set up a job and the jobs we do. From handymen to custom remodelers, it’s a big world out there. I think there’s room for the Centipede Tools Table in it too, but I think here is where the unit’s oddly paradoxical nature is the most strained. Why? Because, what makes it good for one person makes it frustrating for another.

It’s fast to set up and stable once on it’s incredibly strong little legs. But grab a corner to try and move it to a new work location, as I did while insulating a large basement, it deforms. I even screwed the 2×4 brackets to the table bottom and it still fought me.

For many contractors, things with little pieces are doomed. The Centipede has brackets that accept 2x4s. This is great for using the table to cut directly on with a circular saw and not hit the table. However, those brackets are one brain cramp away from not making it back in the bag at the end of the job and guys don’t like that. Most of us make our own set-ups anyway.

On the renovation where I kept the 4×8 unit in one place for a month, outside on grass where the table’s feet were stable on the soft-ish ground, it rocked. I used it to scrape paint from old doors, size lumber, store tools, store and cut drywall. Conversely, on a basement remodel where the concrete floor undulated and all the feet didn’t quite have equal pressure on them, the corners of the table kept moving around and I had to adjust my work frequently.

Conclusion

So I think it boils down to who you are, what your work is and how you work to decide if the Centipede Tools Table is right for you. For your campsites or cookouts, home improvement or DIY, either size is a winner. What’s in the cooler?

Click here to read more by Mark and Theresa on Improvenet.com 

Mark

A licensed contractor, tool expert, wood and outdoor enthusiast, and elite Spartan Race competitor, he writes about home improvement and tools for national magazines and websites, and teaches hands-on clinics for other remodeling professionals. Check out his book, The Carpenter's Notebook.

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