Framing lumber for bench? What is the trick?

[Phil Thien]

I used LVL for the base on the bench I built back in 2006 (for the record, that was three years before Popular Woodworking did theirs).

I basically just got a big LVL and cut it into the sizes I needed.

I used a door for the top.

Notes:

(1) Some LVL I see these days have a sort of sticky substance on the outside. Mine did not. I purchased mine at Menards, but their newer stock isn't the same as this stuff.

(2) The sides are assembled with glued dowels. The stretchers are doweled (no glue) and bolted to the sides. I used wing nuts in place of cross-dowels.

(3) LVL is kinda ugly, you pretty much have to paint it.

[Matthew Hills]

I can't say that I have ever seen any 4x lumber at Lowes except for the 4x4s. I'll look again, but I am pretty sure
I have never seen 4x6's.....

Ask them where their beams are.
Sometimes these are stored in a different spot.

Matt

[Andrew Hecker]

[QUOTE=Steve Friedman;1674791]When I priced dimensional lumber (2x4, 2x6 and 2x8) for a project, I was shocked to discover that the price at the local lumber yards wasn't any more expensive than the big orange or blue store, and sometimes even cheaper. The lumbers yards do say that it's better to buy longer and wider - to stay away from 8' lengths and 2x4s. They claim that the 16' and 20' lengths are of much better quality than the 8 footers and that quality in 2x4s is much worse than in anything wider.

You're absolutely right about 8' 2x4s. They're cheap and young, and barely dried. And they get away with it because they're intended for framing walls, which you'll never see once the siding and drywall are up.

I would avoid 2x4s completely. 2x10s or 2x12s are necessarily better wood because, as previously mentioned, they must come from older trees, which typically have the branches on the top third of the trunk, and no limbs down below where the tree is thickest.

Disclaimer: I have not built a bench before, so this is mere speculation.

My recommendation, if you're going to laminate a top with a softer wood, is to look for 1x6 or 1x4 door jamb boards. They are (supposed to be) straight and clear and good-looking, because they're extremely high traffic and extremely visible. A 1x6 ripped down the middle to 2-1/4", then laminated together and planed flat, seems like a very nice bench top to me. 4x6s and 2x6s might be good materials for the base, too. I've used door jamb boards (ripped in half, and gone over with a 1/4" roundover bit) for trim in my bathroom.

Incidentally 4x4s and 4x6s may be called "posts", rather than boards.

A~

[Rick Cicciarelli]

Well I am not sure where you guys are located but both the Lowes AND the Home Depot in my town do not
carry anything larger than 4x4s that are untreated. They do have 4x6's and 6x6's, but they are all pressure
treated.

[Rick Cicciarelli]

I am thinking maybe Poplar would be the way to go. From the looks of it the pricing would be reasonable...I am just not too sure about that green color.

[Matthew Hills]

Well I am not sure where you guys are located but both the Lowes AND the Home Depot in my town do not
carry anything larger than 4x4s that are untreated. They do have 4x6's and 6x6's, but they are all pressure
treated.

I'm assuming the treated woods are for deck building.

But 2x12, 4x8, 4x12 are used in home construction and those wouldn't normally be treated.
Is your local selection mostly laminates, or some wood species that you don't want to build a bench from?
I.e., if you're knocking out a load-bearing wall and putting in a beam instead, what would they have for you?

On Poplar, the green changes to a brownish color with time (think sunlight speeds this). I had a bit of green in an early box project. Some time in front of a window fixed that up pretty fast.

Can you buy thick poplar locally cheaper than SYP or doug fir?

Matt

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I've had the same experience as Matt with the green going away after time, and this change was speeded by sunlight. I did find film finish tends to prevent this from happening, however. (Haven't tried it with oil finish, I'd imagine it wouldn't.)

[Rick Cicciarelli]

I'm assuming the treated woods are for deck building.

But 2x12, 4x8, 4x12 are used in home construction and those wouldn't normally be treated.
Is your local selection mostly laminates, or some wood species that you don't want to build a bench from?
I.e., if you're knocking out a load-bearing wall and putting in a beam instead, what would they have for you?

On Poplar, the green changes to a brownish color with time (think sunlight speeds this). I had a bit of green in an early box project. Some time in front of a window fixed that up pretty fast.

Can you buy thick poplar locally cheaper than SYP or doug fir?

Matt

By the time I work through the "waste" from all of the knots in the doug fir, I can probably get poplar for about what it would cost me in the long run for doug fir.

As for the question of what would you use if you knocked out a load bearing wall and wanted to install a beam....well unless you wanted to use pressure treated lumber for your living room wall, the only option you have from my local Lowes and Home Depot are metal adjust-a-posts. Otherwise you would have to sandwich up a few 2Xs....or use the 4x4s. They have nothing in the store that would be larger except the pressure treated stuff. (no laminated beams of any kind either)

[Jim Foster]

Hi,

I've just finished my lumberyard bench, sort of... still have to flatten the top. I live in MA and could not find southern yellow pine, so I went and got wet fir from a real lumberyard. The fir was 2x12x 28' (yep 28') I cut it down to 9'pcs at the yard. I let it dry and was able to rip it and machine it and my bench is 9'x25"x5" thick, lots of knots, but the top side is pretty knot free. Today, I would just use Hemlock fir from home depot, the fir from the yard was a pain in the but to work with and much knottier than the better pieces I see over time at the big stores. If you get the longest 2x12 hemlock-fir, you should be able to find pieces you can imagine getting one clean side. I am addicted to looking at the long boards whenever I visit HD or lowe's and the quantity and quality varies a lot over time. For the legs, I used glued up fir 4x4's from HD, these need to be cherry picked also. The challenge I've noticed with the Hemlock-Fir is it moves around a lot after machining it, so you need to glue it up ideally that night you machine it. The Fir I used stayed surprisingly stable after machining. Maybe because it dried in my shop for a couple months, and the Hemlock, even though it was KD, only sat for a week.