Western Red Cedar For Work Bench legs

[Tom Dovan]

I am building a workbench for the shop. I have a nice sheet of 3/4 baltic birch plywood I was planning on using for the top. For the base, I was going to use Western Red Cedar. I have plenty of WRC left over from a recent project and was wondering if this would be strong enough to serve as the base for my work bench. Would like to use my leftover wood. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks

Tom

[Brian Jarnell]

I would have thought any 4x4 timber would do the trick.

[Brian Tymchak]

Western Red Cedar is pretty light as hardwoods go and soft (23 lbs/cf, Janka = 350). Compare that to woods like Hard Maple that many woodworkers use in benches ( 44 lbs/cf, Janka = 1450). Source is The Wood Database. You don't mention what you intend to use the bench for but if you want use the bench for heavy woodworking, clamping and planing boards, etc., my concern would be not having enough mass in the base to adequately anchor the bench from bouncing around while using it. However, you could design the base such that you are able to store a bunch of heavy stuff to add mass to the base. If you are building a light use bench, shouldn't be any problems.

An additional note about the top - again depending on the planned use, if you intend to pound on that top, at 3/4" thick, it's going to bounce, a lot. If you want to undermount a vice to your top, I think you need to make it quite a bit thicker, like 2" minimally.

[Bill Adamsen]

I'd save that red cedar for outdoor trim or other outdoor projects. A local sawmill should be able to provide some maple, or oak (white or red) or white ash. There is unfortunately a huge amount of the latter coming into mills with the devastation wrought by the EAB.