Workbench Top Questions with pics

[Carlos Cabrera]

I was hoping you guys could give me an idea as how to proceed. I built my workbench from quartersawn white oak but the top I initially made by stacking some MDF and covered it with a sheet of 1/4 oak plywood. I built the bench a few years ago and i am wanting now to replace the top with solid Walnut.

My dilemma is that I have 3 boards on top of the bench right now and they of course are bowed and have some twist and basically not flat. I have not joined them yet all i did was cut them to a 7 foot length, plane them and lay them flat on the bench. I calculate that there is about a 1/4" bow along the length of the boards. If you look in the pictures i have clamped them down to the workbench with 2 cowls.

I need some suggestions as to what to do next ?? Obviously I would like to have a flat workbench top so do I bolt the boards down onto the existing workbench top ? Do I try to join the 3 boards together and flatten the top with hand planes and remove the old workbench top ?? Please any help would be appreciated.

Thanks, Carlos

[Jim Koepke]

My thoughts would be to build something else out of the walnut and find a different wood for the top.

I think laminating a lot of thin strips (1X3 or 2X3) would be less likely to cause humidity changes than three big hunks joined together.

jim

[Steve Pirrelli]

I was thinking the same. Better of with harder and cheaper top like Ash. Or rip those boards into thinner strips and laminate.

[whit richardson]

I'd vote for the same answer ... Ash would be a good alternative and cheaper than maple.

[Jim Becker]

Count me in with the other comments. You'll not likely be happy with a bench top made that way over time and it will need more maintenance to keep it flat. Narrow, vertical laminations tend to be the way folks build these things and for good reason. If you need to do this project "now" and don't have the funds for additional hardwood, do a multi-layer bench top by laminating 3 3/4" MDF pieces (inserting hardwood where vices mount), edge it with hardwood 1/4" proud and slip in a 1/4" hard board replaceable topper. It will be flat, heavy & dense, inexpensive and get you through a lot of work until you can do a more traditional benchtop. I do agree that ash is a very nice alternative hardwood, as is "soft" maple. (which is not soft at all...)

[David Keller NC]

Carlos - I too, think you should choose a different wood and a different orientation for your workbench top, but for a slightly different reason. I took a close look at the grain on those walnut boards. While they are quite nice from the standpoint of interesting grain, they're a nightmare from the standpoint of a workbench top that you want to keep flat.

The grain is all over the place in those boards, from flat-sawn to quartersawn, and that means that they will likely never stop twisting and bowing. That won't matter if you use them as a panel captured in a frame on the side of a piece of furniture, but a workbench top has no such provisions. If you bolt them down to try to keep them flat, they will likely crack.

Given that you're in Texas, I would suggest oak (red) for an inexpensive workbench top material that will be durable, strong, and stable. You should be able to purchase straight-grain oak boards 2" thick from a local hardwood supplier for about $2 a b.f., which you can them rip into 3" wide strips that will be quarter-sawn when stood on their edges and their faces glued together to make a laminated top. I suspect maple and (particularly) ash will be very pricey in Texas because they don't grow there in quantity. By the way - you may already know this, but the big-box home improvement stores are the wrong place to buy hardwood lumber - you'll pay a mint for it.

[Carlos Cabrera]

Thank you all so much for taking the time to reply and help me !! If you look at my workbench it is already complete with a top and a vise I just layed out the walnut boards on top of the workbench to show what i wanted to do.

The existing workbench top is made with MDF laminations and a 1/4 plywood top it has been that way for years and I want to change it to a solid wood top which has been my plan since the start but I left it for last since it seems to be a lot of work.

I will take your advice and use the Walnut boards for something else but now my question is do I use the southern yellow pine that is easily accessible at my local home depot or should I use ash which I can get at my local lumber yard ?

Thanks again, Carlos

[Randy Klein]

It's hard to see in the pics, but the board on the right looks it contains the pith. You're going to want to rip that out before you do anything.

[Ben Davis]

Thank you all so much for taking the time to reply and help me !! If you look at my workbench it is already complete with a top and a vise I just layed out the walnut boards on top of the workbench to show what i wanted to do.

The existing workbench top is made with MDF laminations and a 1/4 plywood top it has been that way for years and I want to change it to a solid wood top which has been my plan since the start but I left it for last since it seems to be a lot of work.

I will take your advice and use the Walnut boards for something else but now my question is do I use the southern yellow pine that is easily accessible at my local home depot or should I use ash which I can get at my local lumber yard ?

Thanks again, Carlos

Carlos,

You'll be just fine with the SYP from the local borg. Your only real investment in that top will be the time it takes to get clear and straight boards. Look for the 2x12's at 12' and 16' lengths to get the clearest material. Don't go for 2x4's as there is too much twist and wind.

A second thing to keep in mind is actually quite obvious, but still needs to be said. You do not need to purchase all of the needed wood on the same day or even at the same store. Take plenty of time (and maybe a helper!) to go through the bunks of SYP to get the good stuff. Often times the staff will pull down and open a second bunk for you if you ask. However, sometimes they won't do so if all of the lower bunks are filled. You might need to go do a different store or their competator to get those last 2 or 3 boards!

I would plan on making a 4" thick top and purchase the wood accordingly. That means you can get 2 8' laminates from each 2x12. If you cut the desired thickness of the workbench top down, you can squeeze 3 laminates from each 2x12.

I found that going for the 4" thick top was actually a benefit when selecting the wood, though at first I though I would be wasting too much of the stock. With such a large margin for waste, I can select the clearest portions of the board for the laminates and waste the outer 2-3" of the board. It can take a little creativity, but it's easily doable.

Also make certain that you have a nice sharp blade as the pine sap really can gum things up. No thin-cerf blades here! PM me with any other questions.

[Johnny Kleso]

You can rip the walnut into strips and lam it so the side grain is your work surface..

You can add some other wood in with it like ash..

You dont need your boards dead flat to lam. them together so the 1/4" bow would not be an issue..

[John Schreiber]

Ben's advise above is right on the money.

The only suggestion I could add is that you can also cut out the 2x12s with a circular saw to get as much out of the boards as possible. I started out using a guide, but with practice, I was able to cut smooth and straight following a chalk line.

Also, be sure to pick up extra SYP because some pieces will have unexpected problems.

[David Keller NC]

Carlos - SYP is a fine wood for a workbench top, depending on how you view the trade-off between hardness and ease-of-flattening. SYP, while very strong, is not very hard, so it will dent easily from hammer strikes, setting down a metal plane on its corner, etc... Some find this to be undesirable, so they use harder materials like maple, ash, and oak. But these materials are also more work with a handplane when it comes time to flatten the bench.

Another consideration is what SYP costs in your neck of the woods. In some areas of the country, it can be up to $6 a b.f. (Pacific Northwest). Here in NC, it's dirt cheap - about $1.50 a b.f. I would suggest doing a comparison of the costs of ash, maple, oak, SYP, beech, etc... in your area, and select one that costs less than $3 a b.f. but has good properties of strength and hardness.

Just my personal opinion, but I went with maple for my newest bench's construction. It was reasonably cheap here in NC, and I don't like the work to clean all the sap out of my power planer, jointer, table saw, dust collector and hand planes when working with SYP. I reserve SYP for saw benches, utility shelves and the like in the workshop.

[Carlos Cabrera]

You guys are just great !! It sounds like I need to head on down to my local lumber yard and get me some ash or maple whatever is cheaper. I also like Johnny Kleso's idea to mix in the walnut.

Of course this leads into other opportunities like installing one of those wagon vises. Thanks again for all your help !!!!!

[Randy Klein]

I built my Roubo-ish bench with SYP and discussed some of it here. I bought 14'-2x12's for my 10' long x 4" thick bench. The extra 4' in length allowed for some end checks, seemed to provide clearer boards, and gave me an opportunity to get the 2 best 10'x4" section out of each board. However, I ended up finding many uses for the 'waste', like for the shelf, so it wasn't all that wasteful.

I also bought #1 grade lumber vs the #2 that was at HD and Lowes. It cost a few more dollars bought was well worth it.

Even when you account for all the waste and better grade lumber I paid for, it still came out to about $2/bd-ft.

[James G. Jones]

Carlos,

I am just up the road from you in Allen. I will be looking to start a bench project later this year, once I knock out all the honey-do projects. Please keep us informed as to your progress. Speaking just for myself, I would love to hear what you use and where you get it. And since we're so close, if you ever need anything, just holler.

James