Laminated Top for Workbench: Mill only what you can glue that day?

[Augusto Orosco]

I am finally ready to start building my bench. I will be 6'x2' and have a 4" thick laminated top. I got some 12x16 Kiln Dried Doug Fir from my lumberyard, and the boards have been stickered and acclimating in shop since November. They started at about 16-20% RH in some places, but over these last few months, have stabilized rather nicely without any noticeable twisting or warping. I wanted to cross cut and ripped them before acclimating them, but time constraints prevented me from doing so. I have to check again, but several weeks ago, they were on the 8-10 range of RH (using a cheap meter, so accuracy is probably not very good). My shop remains at 64F during the winter and the humidity levels has been roughly 35-40% (except for a short spell when humidity levels dropped to the 20s, but that's fixed now).

I have a full set of hand planes and a DW735. No power joiner. My plan is to flatten one face and edges with my planes and square up the other face with the planer. My dilemma is that I can only use the planer during the day and on a weekend (unless I want to wake up everyone at home at night!). In an ideal world I would rip the boards with my circ saw one of these weekends, flatten them by hand on one face during several nights and then use another weekend to power plane all the other faces. Finally complete the glue up over several nights. Obviously that's in an ideal word, but I am afraid wood movement can ruin my plans. Most suggest to mill only what you can glue immediately to avoid wood moving on you; but if I were to follow that route, it would take me a long time since I can only use the planer on weekends and for a short time. I fear it would barely be enough time to mill and laminate one or two boards per weekend, out of about 20 I need to get a 24" wide top. . On the other hand, the boards I got were kiln dried and in decent shape, have been acclimating to my shop for 4 months and during that time have barely moved. I don't know if they would start twisting once I rip them, but I suspect they are very stable by now. So, is it completely crazy to mill as much as possible even though glue up will come days/weeks later? I don't mind touching up a little with hand planes once the glue up comes, but certainly don't want to re-mill everything!

[Jim Matthews]

Douglas fir isn't terribly hard stuff, why not try planing by hand?

It doesn't make a great deal of noise, and the results will be good enough that you can build the top in sections.
Garrett Hack shows a bench build that laminates in layers, making three sections.

This could be modified for your build, so long as you can keep the long runs from bowing.
Make one section, set it aside, make another and so on...
http://www.finewoodworking.com/woodw...ench-work.aspx

[Augusto Orosco]

Douglas fir isn't terribly hard stuff, why not try planing by hand?

I

That's not out of the question, but for full disclosure, I have never milled a board fully by hand, so there will be a learning curve. I am confident that I can get one face flat; but I fear that making the opposite face parallel over a 6' long board might be too much for a newbie like me. Would be a great learning exercise, though, reminiscent of the "wax on/wax off" routine...

[Chuck Nickerson]

I did exactly what you're planning to do except my bench is 8" long.

I glued up five times, four boards each. That allowed me to pay close attention during glue-up.
My Bessey clamps were able to pull out the occasional issue.
When gluing up the five groups, two of the eight faces needed minor work.

My bench is three old and going strong.

[Brian Loran]

Dont worry about parallel. hand plane or rip the edges to ~parallel after the top is done. justy worry about flat and good glue joints.

[Augusto Orosco]

I did exactly what you're planning to do except my bench is 8" long.

I glued up five times, four boards each. That allowed me to pay close attention during glue-up.
My Bessey clamps were able to pull out the occasional issue.
When gluing up the five groups, two of the eight faces needed minor work.

My bench is three old and going strong.

Thanks, Chuck. That's encouraging news!

Dont worry about parallel. hand plane or rip the edges to ~parallel after the top is done. justy worry about flat and good glue joints.

I don't quite follow what you say, Brian. My concern is with having the faces parallel because if they are not, the lamination can trend in any random direction; and I would end up with a slinky shaped top that would be a real pain to flatten. Maybe there's confusion because the "edges" of each board will end up forming the "face" of the top? My concern is with parallel board faces, which are the ones that are glued to each other in the lamination. Sorry if I am misinterpreting you, would you mind elaborating?

[Brian Loran]

Augusto, not sure hot to best explain... Get all your faces flat and glue them together. Once the top is all glued up, now get the 2 outer edges parallel (it will not be slinky, it will slope one direction or the other). Will be real easy with hand planes (assuming they are only some fraction of an inch out of parallel, may need to rip cut it if >0.25"), just like bringing 2 edges of a small board into parallel, your "board" happens to be 2 ft wide. It does not matter if all your lamination are parallel.

[michael osadchuk]

I am finally ready to start building my bench. I will be 6'x2' and have a 4" thick laminated top. I got some 12x16 Kiln Dried Doug Fir from my lumberyard, and the boards have been stickered and acclimating in shop since November. They started at about 16-20% RH in some places, but over these last few months, have stabilized rather nicely without any noticeable twisting or warping. I wanted to cross cut and ripped them before acclimating them, but time constraints prevented me from doing so. I have to check again, but several weeks ago, they were on the 8-10 range of RH (using a cheap meter, so accuracy is probably not very good). My shop remains at 64F during the winter and the humidity levels has been roughly 35-40% (except for a short spell when humidity levels dropped to the 20s, but that's fixed now).

I have a full set of hand planes and a DW735. No power joiner. My plan is to flatten one face and edges with my planes and square up the other face with the planer. My dilemma is that I can only use the planer during the day and on a weekend (unless I want to wake up everyone at home at night!). In an ideal world I would rip the boards with my circ saw one of these weekends, flatten them by hand on one face during several nights and then use another weekend to power plane all the other faces. Finally complete the glue up over several nights. Obviously that's in an ideal word, but I am afraid wood movement can ruin my plans. Most suggest to mill only what you can glue immediately to avoid wood moving on you; but if I were to follow that route, it would take me a long time since I can only use the planer on weekends and for a short time. I fear it would barely be enough time to mill and laminate one or two boards per weekend, out of about 20 I need to get a 24" wide top. . On the other hand, the boards I got were kiln dried and in decent shape, have been acclimating to my shop for 4 months and during that time have barely moved. I don't know if they would start twisting once I rip them, but I suspect they are very stable by now. So, is it completely crazy to mill as much as possible even though glue up will come days/weeks later? I don't mind touching up a little with hand planes once the glue up comes, but certainly don't want to re-mill everything!

Augusto,

Can you clarify the width and thickness dimension 12 x 16 (kiln?)dry douglas fir that you still have to rip with a circular saw before you can handplane a face and edge before running those smaller dimensioned pieces thru a machine planer?

12" wide by 16" thick ? .... doesn't sound right (I suspect you don't have a circular saw with a 14" diameter blade - smiley) and if is anything along those lines you have to question whether your moisture meter is picking up measurement in the middle of such a thick timber.

My understanding is that you want to saw thick, wide timbers to the approximate dimensions you want, leaving enough excess dimension to do a final milling, further dry timbers of these dimensions (with stickers, weights, etc.) and then plane to final dimensions and glue up soon after that final planing.

If the stock you have are 2" x 16" nominal and not rough planed, after ripping each board into four 4" widths, do you have to do any hand planing before gluing them? shouldn't the faces be sufficiently flat (and parallel to each other) to ensure a strong glue up?
I would not worry about the edges of the boards (which become the top and bottom of the benchtop) as you can machine plane two or three subassemblies, each 12" or 8" wide.

good luck

michael

[Augusto Orosco]

Augusto,

Can you clarify the width and thickness dimension 12 x 16 (kiln?)dry douglas fir that you still have to rip with a circular saw before you can handplane a face and edge before running those smaller dimensioned pieces thru a machine planer?

12" wide by 16" thick ? .... doesn't sound right (I suspect you don't have a circular saw with a 14" diameter blade - smiley) and if is anything along those lines you have to question whether your moisture meter is picking up measurement in the middle of such a thick timber.

My understanding is that you want to saw thick, wide timbers to the approximate dimensions you want, leaving enough excess dimension to do a final milling, further dry timbers of these dimensions (with stickers, weights, etc.) and then plane to final dimensions and glue up soon after that final planing.

If the stock you have are 2" x 16" nominal and not rough planed, after ripping each board into four 4" widths, do you have to do any hand planing before gluing them? shouldn't the faces be sufficiently flat (and parallel to each other) to ensure a strong glue up?
I would not worry about the edges of the boards (which become the top and bottom of the benchtop) as you can machine plane two or three subassemblies, each 12" or 8" wide.

good luck

michael

My bad on the dimensions; I suck at stating things the conventional way. I got 2x12 16 feet boards. (i.e. 2" thick, 12" wide, 16' long). They are nominal, so it's more like 1.5" thick and 11.5" wide. I wouldn't expect the boards to be ready for glue up after ripping, but certainly it shouldn't be too horrible given that they are of good quality. They should also be reasonably parallel, but this would change somewhat as I flatten one face. I partially agree about not worrying with the edges, since although I can certainly machine plane in subassemblies, I still need to flatten by hand one of the faces of each subassembly before running it through the planer. Having the edges (or at least one edge) at 90 degrees to the faces will make aligning the glue up easier easily and reduce the need to do heavy flattening afterwards.

Am I being too picky? I was under the impression that I should aim for an excellent face to face fit so the lamination is strong and doesn't come apart later!

[Bobby O'Neal]

For what it's worth, my bench is currently underway. I am milling everything by hand and doing rough brekdown with a circular saw and table saw. Being relatively new to milling by hand myself, I started with the shortest parts and am working my way up to the 9' top. So, short stretchers first, then legs, long stretchers and the top last. So far the legs have had the most laminations with four boards each but I've glued two at a time, making an eight piece glue up. They went ok and at this point I will probably feel good doing the top in stages of four boards at a time. As for movement, I haven't had any issues with mine, which is dimensional SYP from Home Depot that acclimated for about six weeks. Hope that helps.

[Augusto Orosco]

Augusto, not sure hot to best explain... Get all your faces flat and glue them together. Once the top is all glued up, now get the 2 outer edges parallel (it will not be slinky, it will slope one direction or the other). Will be real easy with hand planes (assuming they are only some fraction of an inch out of parallel, may need to rip cut it if >0.25"), just like bringing 2 edges of a small board into parallel, your "board" happens to be 2 ft wide. It does not matter if all your lamination are parallel.

Is this is what you mean? In the figure, all boards have one face perpendicular to the two edges, but the opposite face is not parallel (features are greatly exaggerated to illustrate the point) . If I understand you correctly, I can trim on final edge of the lamination after gluing up removing the scratched area on the right side. My concern would be that the top and bottom end up way out of flat and out of parallel, requiring considerable planning afterwards.

As I mentioned before, maybe I am worrying too much about nothing? I have no idea on how off I would be, but I imagine if I am off parallel by 1/16" for every board, the discrepancies can quickly add up, unless I take care on alternating them so they end up offsetting each other.

[michael osadchuk]

My bad on the dimensions; I suck at stating things the conventional way. I got 2x12 16 feet boards. (i.e. 2" thick, 12" wide, 16' long). They are nominal, so it's more like 1.5" thick and 11.5" wide. I wouldn't expect the boards to be ready for glue up after ripping, but certainly it shouldn't be too horrible given that they are of good quality. They should also be reasonably parallel, but this would change somewhat as I flatten one face. I partially agree about not worrying with the edges, since although I can certainly machine plane in subassemblies, I still need to flatten by hand one of the faces of each subassembly before running it through the planer. Having the edges (or at least one edge) at 90 degrees to the faces will make aligning the glue up easier easily and reduce the need to do heavy flattening afterwards.

Am I being too picky? I was under the impression that I should aim for an excellent face to face fit so the lamination is strong and doesn't come apart later!

Augusto,

I think that after you rip each 2 x 12 board into 4 pieces, you are good to glue the faces of each of these pieces together .... the faces of milled 2 by stock from the lumberyards should be flat and parallel. Don't worry now about removing the slightly rounded milled corner edges.

Two of these pieces from each 2 x 12 will have already milled straight edges... plan to put these already milled edges on the bottom surface of your glue. Choose the straightest edges of the other two pieces that will have both edges circular sawn to also be on the bottom surface of your glue up ( even do a little scrub hand planing on those edges ).... your subassembly glue up of 4 widths should come out of glueup with the bottom face (the edges of the individual timbers now become one of the faces of your bench top subassembly) reasonably flat .... as long as this bottom face is flat enough that this subassembly doesn't rock on a flat surface (don't worry about small dips, etc.) you can shoot this subassembly thru the machine planer, flat(ter) bottom face down.

I don't worry about this bottom face of the subassemblies or of the completed benchtop being smooth or being without minor cracks, depressions - as long as it is flat enough so that the completed benchtop can be fastened to whatever your supporting bench structure is - who cares about how the bottom looks. And you want to squeeze out as much final thickness in the completed benchtop.

You probably don't have to worry about hand planing flat the edges of each subassembly - so that the 3 (?) subassemblies mate together - if you take care to not induce a lengthwise bend in the first timber in each subassemby .... if you have a concern about this, perhaps get a heavier piece of timber and plane one edge and one surface flat and set you timbers you are gluing up against this.......I think another of getting perfect mating of the subassemblies is to use the first subassembly you make as the "heavy timber" or batten against which you start the glue of the second assembly (and so on for third assembly) - you don't care as much if there is a bit of convex/concave outer edge to the finished benchtop - which you can handplane away - as getting a very good mating of the subassemblies.

I think you moisture level readings are fine ... whether your moisture meter is cheap or pricey, you can do an effective check on newly bought wood by comparing its reading to a piece of wood you already have in your shop that has been around "forever" as long as it is relatively close in specific density. And even if there is a point or two of difference I still wouldn't worry.

good luck

michael

[Kurt Cady]

Augusto,

I think that after you rip each 2 x 12 board into 4 pieces, you are good to glue the faces of each of these pieces together .... the faces of milled 2 by stock from the lumberyards should be flat and parallel.

michael

Don't do that! Dimensional lumber isn't as flat as you think. The grain is raised, etc.

[John Donofrio]

Don't do that! Dimensional lumber isn't as flat as you think. The grain is raised, etc.

Amen to that. No way I would glue up straight from the yard!

Mill a few and 'dry fit' with clamps. If you are happy with the parallelism/fit, glue them up into a sub assembly. Repeat then glue sub-assemblies. That would be my approach.

[Sam Stephens]

here's my 2 cents:
1) you can x-cut close to final length and rip all the lumber whenever, just keep it stickered. since your wood has had sufficient time to acclimate and stabilize, any movement that will occur w/ the rip is probably due to tension w/in the board. If the MC is stable, you're good to go. Note that I prefer to x-cut by hand (quiet) or w/ a circular saw (loud) and rip w/ a band saw if the board won't lie flat for the TS. BS is much safer in this respect.

2) If you need a flat face, it's easy enough to plane it by hand. My method: cupped (concave) face up, mark a squiggly pencil line down the length of the board in the middle (low spot) -plane across the grain taking equal swipes down the board until the squiggly line is gone and you are getting shavings all the way across. If it's cupped badly i.e. takes a number of passes, rotate the board 180 degrees every couple of passes to minimize the risk of planing a taper across the face. Once it's close to flat, plane w/ the grain taking equal passes along the board. now you can power plane the other if desired (or by hand) and/or joint an edge and rip.

3) regarding milling (jointing/planing), in general it's best to take off "equal" amounts from both faces at a time meaning joint your faces and plane the other face parallel the same day (not the following weekend). This is b/c the MC below the surface can still be variable and removing material from only one face but not the other can result in differential rates of moisture transfer. BTDT. The end result can be cupping and bowing aka back to square one. Of course ymmv, but this "method" has served me well.

4) if the faces are not flat and parallel (or at least very close to), I think you'd be doing yourself a disservice by gluing them up that way and are only headed for problems down the road. So yes, the boards should mate very well along the entire length for a solid glue joint. doing things the right way is far easier than fixing mistakes such as bad glue joints opening up in the middle of your bench later on! YMMV. Some wood from the yard is ready to go and some not. Irregardless, I still prefer to expose fresh wood via planing b/c who knows what's on the surface that may interfere w/ the glue up (I'm assuming the lumber is rough or skip planed not S2'd)

5) once you start milling, keep the boards stickered both before and after glue ups. strange things can happen otherwise.

HTH,
Sam