Work bench top design question

Status
Not open for further replies.

Phil S

Phil Soper
Staff member
Corporate Member
I am hoping to build a new work bench and I have some recovered maple locker room benches that I think could be laminated into a nice top. The benches are 9" wide by 1 1/4" thick. I was thinking of using three wide by two or three thick (resulting in a 27" by 72" top that is 2 1/2" or 3 3/4" thick) and then adding a 4" walnut apron around all four sides. I am not sure as to the best way to build this and I thought I would ask the experts. Any ideas?
DSCF00254.JPG

DSCF00263.JPG

Thanks
 

Travis Porter

Travis
Corporate Member
Personally, and from what I can see, I would rip the sides straight and square and glue on enough sections to get your width. Then wide belt sand or hand plane the old finish off.
 

Phil S

Phil Soper
Staff member
Corporate Member
Travis, Thanks for the reply. Can I just glue two or three layers together to get a nice thick top and if I can glue them should I orient the grain direction like plywood? --ie: layer 1 north-south layer 2 east-west and layer 3 north-south. Hope that makes sense
 

Travis Porter

Travis
Corporate Member
If you do glue them on top of each other I would not be alternating the grain direction. Boards are too thick for that IMO. I would go long grain to long grain. I would do them all north-south.

A 1 1/4 thick top is a pretty thick top. One of my earlier benches had a 1 1/4" thick top with a 3 1/2" apron around it.
 

Gofor

Mark
Corporate Member
ditto what Travis said. If you want a section thicker for putting in bench dog holes or holes for Grammercy clamps, you can always glue another layer under that section. That goes for vise hardware mount areas also.

What are you going to do with that "old' bench they are sitting on? It looks like it is pretty nice in its own right.


Go
 
M

McRabbet

I would agree that you can layer your glued-up slabs one atop another (long-grain to long grain), but be sure that the joints in each slab do not line up. If you want bench dog holes, I would cut them across an edge at a slight angle before the glue-up and place them on alternating board edges in each layer so the holes line up but the edges don't. I would also arrange to put each layer through a wide drum sander to insure they are flat. Coarse sanding might also improve the bite between layers.
 

Bas

Recovering tool addict
Bas
Corporate Member
Here's a different idea. Not sure if it's a good one. How about ripping each board into "strips" 2" - 3" wide. Turn 90 degrees. Glue up however many strips you need to get the size you need. If you want your bench 30" wide, you'd need 28 / 1.25 = 24 strips. This avoids having to stagger the joints.

You should be able to get 3-4 strips per board, 5 if you go for a thinner top.
 

Phil S

Phil Soper
Staff member
Corporate Member
The old bench is going to be retired as I think it is just about 90 years old. It is a Hammacher Schlemmer & Co. bench purchased when my grandfather lived in Durham.
It is a great bench, I just want better work holding capability.
 

Travis Porter

Travis
Corporate Member
I think that is a very good idea. It would give the thickness he wants without having to glue slabs on top of one another which would be a substantial undertaking.

Here's a different idea. Not sure if it's a good one. How about ripping each board into "strips" 2" - 3" wide. Turn 90 degrees. Glue up however many strips you need to get the size you need. If you want your bench 30" wide, you'd need 28 / 1.25 = 24 strips. This avoids having to stagger the joints.

You should be able to get 3-4 strips per board, 5 if you go for a thinner top.
 

Phil S

Phil Soper
Staff member
Corporate Member
Here's a different idea. Not sure if it's a good one. How about ripping each board into "strips" 2" - 3" wide. Turn 90 degrees. Glue up however many strips you need to get the size you need. If you want your bench 30" wide, you'd need 28 / 1.25 = 24 strips. This avoids having to stagger the joints.

You should be able to get 3-4 strips per board, 5 if you go for a thinner top.

Bas, This seems like a great idea. I looked at the grain direction in all the bench boards and I think if I use your method the top of the work bench will be flatsawn strips as opposed to quartersawn. Aside from looks do you know any advantage or disadvantage to a flat sawn top or am I overthinking this?
 

Bas

Recovering tool addict
Bas
Corporate Member
Bas, This seems like a great idea. I looked at the grain direction in all the bench boards and I think if I use your method the top of the work bench will be flatsawn strips as opposed to quartersawn. Aside from looks do you know any advantage or disadvantage to a flat sawn top or am I overthinking this?
Well, you're asking the guy that made his workbench top from Southern Yellow Pine :) But no, I don't see why that would be a real disadvantage. I think your top might stay flatter if the boards were quartersawn. But there will always be some movement anyway.

Travis made a good point that gluing the slabs would be a major undertaking. You'd need an awful lot of clamping pressure to do that, and if you have a less-than-perfect bond, the quartersawing could work against you - the layers might delaminate.
 

Alan in Little Washington

Alan Schaffter
Corporate Member
Bas, This seems like a great idea. I looked at the grain direction in all the bench boards and I think if I use your method the top of the work bench will be flatsawn strips as opposed to quartersawn. Aside from looks do you know any advantage or disadvantage to a flat sawn top or am I overthinking this?

Phil, I agree. Those benches look like they were made with the boards face joined which yields a bench with quartersawn faces- the best for cross-grain dimensional stability and surface hardness. Unless you plan to do some heavy duty pounding, you could get away with a single layer of that. But, as has been said you will not have the gripping depth for bench hooks or sufficient thickness for dogs. You could either increase the thickness in that area or across the entire top. That stuff is as dry as it will ever get so a long grain glue up will be as strong you will ever get. You may need to rip it face joint it, join two sections (quartersawn) face to face, then edge glue them back together.

Frankly, I wouldn't use that terrible stuff and I'm sure it is really getting in the way. When do yo want me to stop by to pick it up and get it out of your way?
 

Tarhead

Mark
Corporate Member
I agree with Alan. Just think about how many sweaty gym shorts have intimately contacted those benchs? Yuck! You wouldn't want to transfer those Kooties onto your projects...wood you? We may need to have the Health Inspection folks visit.:rotflm:
All joking aside...I would make a base under one layer of your beautiful Maple with several layers of some other substrate (Plywood, MDF) to get some thickness, extra strength and weight. Probably wouldn't hurt dimensional stability. If you're wrapping it with an apron you will probably be the only person to know it's not solid. I know some of the traditionalist are rolling their eyes but a big ole solid top equals lots of future maintenence with hand planes, belt sanders, etc to keep it flat. Hard Rock Maple takes some serious calorie expenditure to work.

Ripping your boards into strips (lengthwise along the glue lines) and re-assembly with the grain orientation sloping in the same or neutral direction would help with jointing later when it needs flattening/cleaning up. I messed up an old maple library table top with a #8 Stanley once because the grain switched back and forth between some of the boards. Tear-out city.
 

FredP

Fred
Corporate Member
The old bench is going to be retired as I think it is just about 90 years old. It is a Hammacher Schlemmer & Co. bench purchased when my grandfather lived in Durham.
It is a great bench, I just want better work holding capability.

I would be happy to take that old retired bench off your hands.:wink_smil I can haul it off anytime!:eusa_danc
 

Gotcha6

Dennis
Staff member
Corporate Member
If you want to make it thicker to gain mass, there's an article in one of the current WW mags about ballasting the base of the workbench by creating a shallow box for a bottom shelf & filling it with play sand.
 

flatheadfisher

New User
Michael
You could lay out some 8/4 SYP and plane it flat. Then, you can cover it with glue, place your maple top on it, and run some screws into the maple from the bottom. That is what I did with my bench. But, I wasn't fortunate enough to have such a nice top and I used maple plywood instead.
 

Travis Porter

Travis
Corporate Member
You may get a little more expansion and contraction with flatsawn vs quartersawn, but if you build it right to allow for the movement with your aprons (which you should do regardless) you should have NO trouble at all.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Premier Sponsor

Our Sponsors

LATEST FOR SALE LISTINGS

Top