To finish or not to finish a workbench base question

[Jack Curtis]

Now that's interesting and illustrates how different we all can be. I love unfinished wood, the feel, the look, the lack of shiney. And my Japanese tools provide a nicely burnished unfinished surface.

[Terry Beadle]

Your work bench is your base of operations in hand tooling. It should get the protection on the base legs and cross members it deserves. BLO works great and one or two coats will last for years and years. The top is a different story and gets into the preferences areas. I use thinned BLO on my top. Very thin. Just enough to keep glue popping and resist stains.

That's my 2 cents and worth every penny ! Hoot!

[Frank Drew]

Now that's interesting and illustrates how different we all can be. I love unfinished wood, the feel, the look, the lack of shiney. And my Japanese tools provide a nicely burnished unfinished surface.

Okay, fair point; I worked on a Japanese-style house many years ago and every board that went up (mostly cypress) was hand planed, and they all had a satiny glow. I'm not sure if that quality persists, however; no finish subjects the surface of the wood to higher levels of humidity, maybe enough to raise the grain even if just by a little bit. If that happens, goodbye glow.

In any case, a shop is a different, messier environment than a jewel-box house.

But, yes, a hand-planed piece of wood, left bare, can be a thing of beauty.

[Jorge Rico]

Paul,
My first bench was made with 4 x 4 Douglas Fir legs and resided in my garage, which became damp once the winter rains started. For this reason I used linseed oil on all of it to minimize movement between wet and dry cycles. The linseed oil was also liberally applied to the bottoms of the legs to hopefully slow down any moisture migrating through the concrete slab. I don't know if that treatment did anything for the bottom half but I can tell you that it made a difference for the top, which was 3/4" maple glued over plywood. I've since gotten Chris Schwarz' book on workbenches and am planning a bench build will be more along the lines of a roubo bench.

[Paul Erickson]

Thanks everyone for the input. In order to minimize dimensional change and to ease clean-up I have decided to use a friends suggestion of a BLO/Varnish?Turpentine mix. Will show the final product when it is finished. Thanks again for the time and attention. Really appreciated.

cheers, Paul