Your opinion on a work bench: How thick is too thick?

[David Weaver]

bahh.. i was just about to say the same thing that jason said, but he beat me to it.

I wouldn't go thicker than 4" because hold fasts wouldn't work well, and because the wait doesn't offer a practical benefit above that. It is still nice sometimes to be able to move the bench a little. A 650 pound bench doesn't have anything over a properly made 300 pound bench when planing something, nor when chiseling, etc.

[David Keller NC]

Jim - To be effective as a workbench top, the width of the ripped, edged and planed boards doesn't have to be all one piece. In other words, if you decided on a 3" thick top, two 5-1/4" wide maple boards can be edge-joined to make a panel 10-1/2" wide, which can then be ripped down to 3 3" wide "boards" that can then be face-glued to form your workbench top. Yes, one of those 3" wide boards will be a composite of 2 boards, but it won't matter - the top will still move as one unit, and as long as you don't put one of the composite boards on either of the two outside workbench top edges, no one will ever be the wiser.

The one caveat is that I would orient the "composite" laminates so that the wider piece is on the top face of the workbench - one would not, for example, want one of these joints within 1/4" of the workbench surface, as occasional re-flattening of the bench would eventually get down to the glue joint.

[Jim Neeley]

Excellant point, David.. With one side of the "scrap" ripped straight, one more pass through the saw and poof... edge-join material. A good way to "warm up" for the big glue-up anyway. :-)

[Johnny Ramon]

Thick enough so that you don't need a skirt. Clamp work better without a skirt.

[Jim Neeley]

No skirt??? ..even with shapely legs???? <cheezy grin>

[Dave Gallaher]

Too thick is only when you don't need legs under the bench. But 3 inches seems like the thickness of my next bench.

[Stanley Covington]

Don't forget to take into account the vise when designing your benchtop. If it is too thick, you may be forced to rout out a significant amount of wood to accommodate the vise mechanism.

Stan

[george wilson]

If the bench needs to be 32" high,and the top is 33" thick,then it is too thick.

[Jim Neeley]

I dunno.. just take a think shave off the top... <g>

Not only that, little fear of sand-through!!

Tho there is one thing... 33" x 36"w x 84"l is about 700bf of wood...

If the bench needs to be 32" high,and the top is 33" thick,then it is too thick.