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

[John Donofrio]

Augusto, I do not know your skill level but I know mine and there's almost no way I would be able to get a perfectly flat top straight from glue-up at this scale with all the pieces required. I tried the best I could when I built my bench. I was happy with the result but it did still require a final flattening. If you take your time and approach it methodically, your results will be good and the final flattening will not be that hard. It will most likely be needed though so don't let it bother you.

.02

Good luck! How about some pictures?

[Augusto Orosco]

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

Thank you Sam, that is very helpful!

[Augusto Orosco]

Augusto, I do not know your skill level but I know mine and there's almost no way I would be able to get a perfectly flat top straight from glue-up at this scale with all the pieces required. I tried the best I could when I built my bench. I was happy with the result but it did still require a final flattening. If you take your time and approach it methodically, your results will be good and the final flattening will not be that hard. It will most likely be needed though so don't let it bother you.

.02

Good luck! How about some pictures?

My skill level is certainly way below yours: I have seen your bench build thread! I am sure I will have to flatten the top at the end, I just want to minimize the amount I have to flatten and preserve as much thickness as possible.

I will try to post some pictures as I progress... but it will be a very slow process, given how little shop time I get nowadays!

[Jim Matthews]

If you match plane each adjacent board, the misalignments cancel.

Bob Rozaieski offers a primer on The Logan Cabinet shoppe.
I've done it, and it works. The key is to have top faces flat their entire length that will face "up".

Butt the now flat "up" faces of adjacent boards together and flatten the exposed side of these boards at the same time.
If you're out of square, the errors cancel - but you must get one reference face flat, first.

It's tedious, but faster than waiting for sufficient free time required for your machine tooling.

If it were my bench, I would find a cabinet shop to skip plane each board S4S.
Milling is why apprentices were hired.

It's the joining of boards that's fun.

[Brian Loran]

Ahhh.. I thought you meant getting them parallel in the long direction. For the problem you describe, I don't think the errors will stack up that bad and you have to flatten the top when it is done anyway. If you are worried about it, measure the thickness on each side at a couple spots and keep the delta to <1/16" (only compare measurements directly across from each other). It won't be difficult to do across ~4". Just make sure there is no twist! That will bugger you up.

[John Donofrio]

Augusto, I think you may have grossly over estimated my skill level . I am a beginner and have a great respect for anyone building a bench like this primarily with hand tools! I realize after re-reading my last post that it sounded a bit brash. For that I apologize as that was certainly not my intent.

I struggled with the same worries you describe so much so that it nearly crippled me at times; paralysis by analysis was in play. What I was actually trying to convey is that you just need to take your time and go for it, success will follow with planning and patience. Once again, good luck with your build. Looking forward to the pics you promised .

[Augusto Orosco]

Augusto, I think you may have grossly over estimated my skill level . I am a beginner and have a great respect for anyone building a bench like this primarily with hand tools! I realize after re-reading my last post that it sounded a bit brash. For that I apologize as that was certainly not my intent.

I struggled with the same worries you describe so much so that it nearly crippled me at times; paralysis by analysis was in play. What I was actually trying to convey is that you just need to take your time and go for it, success will follow with planning and patience. Once again, good luck with your build. Looking forward to the pics you promised .

I didn't read that as brash at all. I am very thankful for your thread and how detailed it was. You are right about the paralysis by analysis thing. Last night I cross cut one of the long 16 footers to get a ~7 piece. I put it on top of the quick makeshift workbench I have made for this build (mostly a 5'x2' plywood top and a base out of screwed 2x4s) to get a feeling of what I am dealing with. I couldn't rip it because it was already almost midnight and the circ. saw was out of the question, but it feels less daunting now that I can concentrate on one board of the appropriate length instead of on the huge stack I have. I will take things slowly, one board at a time. After all, this is supposed to be fun!

[Adam Cruea]

I am building my bench currently and I only mill what I can work with that day (unless it's like 3 or 4 6' long pieces of 5/4).

I glue them up and I only flatten the faces that are getting glued. I didn't make sure they were parallel or anything like that, and I didn't have to worry about the "slinky" issue. Granted, I have a 1/4" gap on either side, but this will be filled in with Brazilian Cherry or something after I knock out a 3/4" or 1" wide channel to slip the accent wood into.

I'm a newbie myself, and if I can do it without much issue, it can't be that hard to do.