I was hoping you guys could give me an idea as how to proceed. I built my workbench from quartersawn white oak but the top I initially made by stacking some MDF and covered it with a sheet of 1/4 oak plywood. I built the bench a few years ago and i am wanting now to replace the top with solid Walnut.
My dilemma is that I have 3 boards on top of the bench right now and they of course are bowed and have some twist and basically not flat. I have not joined them yet all i did was cut them to a 7 foot length, plane them and lay them flat on the bench. I calculate that there is about a 1/4" bow along the length of the boards. If you look in the pictures i have clamped them down to the workbench with 2 cowls.
I need some suggestions as to what to do next ?? Obviously I would like to have a flat workbench top so do I bolt the boards down onto the existing workbench top ? Do I try to join the 3 boards together and flatten the top with hand planes and remove the old workbench top ?? Please any help would be appreciated.
Thanks, Carlos