Planing on a work bench that is not flat.

[Stanley Covington]

Please modify your title by substituting "level" for "flat." The whole thread is nonsense otherwise.

[Stew Denton]

Scott,

Andy has a good point, an old solid core door on the horses. Hollow core doors have a very thin skin, the ones I have worked on have a skin of plywood only about 1/8th inch thick with a waffle type core of folded corrugated cardboard. The cores cardboard content is usually quite marginable. By "work on" I don't mean us it as a bench, I mean replacing one of the skins, putting on hinges and mounting the door, building the door jamb, cutting the hole to mount the knob, etc. (IE: carpentry on the door.)

Consequently, the hollow core door has a face that is too thin for a workbench top in my view, but a solid core door will do quite nicely if you can find an old one cheap. Plac es that sell recycled building supplies might have on cheap. You will have to fill the door knob mounting hole though.

Stew

[Scott Archi]

Please modify your title by substituting "level" for "flat." The whole thread is nonsense otherwise.

.... No


It may be nonsense to you but these fine gentlemen are helping me out instead of critiquing my choice of words.

[Scott Archi]

If it is not steady, that is a problem. You want it to be stable. I have no idea how you designed your bench (photos really help people understand what you are dealing with), but you could try shims to try to firm it up. It may not work, but on the other hand it costs nothing and may work wonders. My torsion box "workbench in a weekend" was very unsteady when I got it together (a result of literally building it on the grass in my backyard) but a shim in the right spot made it rock solid.

Some folks also add weight on a lower shelf to help steady it.

I will ill take some photos to help paint a picture and for the sake of diagnosis.

[Megan Fitzpatrick]

If it's out of flat...or if like me you _know_ how to flatten the bench and have just been a little too crazed w/other things to get around to it...a planing board can easily overcome that problem:
http://www.popularwoodworking.com/wo...planing-boards
http://www.popularwoodworking.com/wo...-planing-board

[Phil Mueller]

Thanks for posting those links Megan!. Solves a couple of challenges for me.

[David Eisenhauer]

Thanks Megan. Good stuff.

[Scott Archi]

Great reads thank you Megan.