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I am trying to mount this bike repair stand to a workbench. I am not very handy, but I love to learn and hope to get handier starting now....

It came with no instructions. Guy at Home Depot suggested that I use #12 7/8" round head woodscrews with #12 1/4" washers. (Sitting in white tray in my pictures.). He also told me to use 1/8" drill bit to drill pilot hole and to fill the hole with gorilla glue before I screwed in the screws.

So I drilled my pilot holes (all the way through the table). Dropped some glue in, stuck bike stand on, then washers, then screws. Then used drill with Phillips head to drill in screws. Screws would never really go down all the way. Once they made contact with the washer, they would just keep spinning but never tighten up. I tried one without the washer, and I got the same result. I tried putting the top of the stand on and then loading up my bike, but the mounting plate immediately came up, bringing screws out with it.

I'm sure I screwed up about every step. Can you tell me where I went wrong?

Is the table I'm using even thick enough for me to mount this thing? The workbench came with my house and is constructed with 2x4s enter image description here

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It’s hard to tell from the pictures how thick the bench is. If it is 7/8” thick or 1-1/2” thick. It may be just the perspective of the picture but those screws look smaller than you described and the drill bit looks bigger than 1/8”. It seems you did everything right although the glue was probably unnecessary. The screws really shouldn’t have stripped out like that although the screws may have been a little short. I would use as long a screw as will almost go through to the other side. I would also use as thick a screw as will fit through the holes in the metal plate. Alternatively even better, I would drill all the way through the wood with a bit the same size as the holes in the metal and use bolts and nuts. Again as large as will fit through the holes in the metal plate. On the under side use washers and lock washers.

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  • +1 but did you mean "washers and lock-nuts"? – RedGrittyBrick Apr 26 '18 at 9:59
  • Thanks for taking time to responds. Table is closer to 1.5 inches than 7/8"? (See second picture in this album: imgur.com/a/9CCpws2 ) . You are right about drill bit being bigger. I did confirm the screws are size 12 and 7/8" long using a gauge. One question on bolts. If you look at first picture on album, I could do it for the holes on one side but not the other because of a crossbar type piece of wood running under the table? Should I do bolts on one side and screws on the other? – oob Apr 26 '18 at 11:09
  • You can do both sides. Use 2-1/2" lag screws or longer machine screws. – isherwood Apr 26 '18 at 12:21
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    Bolts are always going to be stronger than screws but if the screws are large enough and long enough they should be fine. Drilling a pilot hole you want to make sure the bit is smaller than the screw. 1/8” should be good for #12 screws, 3/16” would be too big. Getting back to nuts and bolts, Could you drill all the way through the cross piece and just use really long bolts? – user76730 Apr 26 '18 at 22:08
  • I ended up using 3 bolts and went as big as I could (5/16") as you suggested. I had to use a lag screw for the fourth since there was a supporting piece of wood under the table. Feels very solid and held a bike already for several hours without issue. – oob Apr 29 '18 at 3:35
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Those screws are absurdly short. The salesperson may have been under the impression that you had a 3/4" countertop, and may not have known about the thick mounting plate.

Considering the torque that will be on the base, I'd be using the largest screws that fit the mounting holes and the longest ones that don't protrude through the bench top. This probably means 1/4" lag screws, or #14 panhead. Through-bolts are also a good option, though probably not necessary.

The other consideration is the mounting of the bench top itself. I can't see many of the assembly fasteners in your photo, but I'm guessing that there are screws beneath the plate running into the horizontal 2x2. You may want to add more screws where you can, such as into the bench leg, to stiffen and support the board to which the plate is mounted. You might even run a wider board under the top boards (in place of the 2x2 or alongside it) and bolt all the way into that, tying the other top boards to it as a system.

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