Workbench Wood
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9 April 2015 at 4:31 am #126372
How much does soft wood bowing and crooks affect your ability to laminate the bench tops?
There is almost zero soft wood around here that’s in decent quality.
50% of what I can find at the best place around here is bowed along one of the faces (the ‘C’ affect) such that if I close two boards together I can see about an inch of gap, which about 80% of which can be closed if I squeeze them together with my hands (but not fully closed).
Glue + clamp pressure going to still work here?
Mine was like that. Back when I made it I knew nothing about edge jointing and such so I just joined it as it was. Made no real difference apart from there being a few gaps between the pieces.
If you can hold it together with hand pressure mostly well then glue and clamps will work fine. A few gaps are ok, it a workbench after all not a dining table lol
9 April 2015 at 2:42 pm #126379Hmm I don’t want gaps in my bench top.
This isn’t edge jointing though, that would be the wellboard and aprons?
Hrm.
9 April 2015 at 4:07 pm #126384I got #2 at best and it’s awful. They let me pick through it sorta but half of it dried with some crazy crook or bow.
9 April 2015 at 4:51 pm #126385For my aprons I used construction lumber, Radiata Pine, went one size up from what I needed (got 2.4m instead of 1.8m), and just picked through a rack to find the best pieces I could, with defects in the ends. I chopped out the bad bits, planed them as flat as I could and joined them. They turned out pretty alright. For the tops, I found it all but impossible to get decent timber at a price I could afford. In the end I scoured the local classifieds and found a lumber mill in the city closing down. Ended up getting 7 2″x6″ rough sawn boards the guy said were Brazilian Oak. They’re panel sawn, but I plan to rip them down the middle and join them on the faces, effectively making them quarter sawn. I only paid $100 and I got some pretty good quality wood.
Point is, you might be better off looking for something you can mill yourself, rather than settling for construction lumber on the tops.
9 April 2015 at 5:07 pm #126387[quote quote=126385]Point is, you might be better off looking for something you can mill yourself, rather than settling for construction lumber on the tops.[/quote]
Problem there is there is all of 1 lumber yard in a 100mi radius around here (and I’m close to a US city).
And -all- of the wood at that yard is hardwood.
Not cheap enough for a bench build.
9 April 2015 at 5:42 pm #126388Well, it doesn’t have to be a lumber mill. I had 2 other options at the same time, some Karri beams from someone pulling down a shed (decided not to because I would have had to wait for asbestos to be cleared), or some other hardwoods from a cabinetmaker’s or some such.
Try Craig’s List or similar, I found my stuff on the Aus equivalent, Gumtree. Or check your local classifieds. You can get a lot more bang for your buck if you’re willing to open your mind and maybe put in a bit of work.
9 April 2015 at 6:18 pm #126389Ben, I feel your pain. I ended up laminating a 3 inch slab of plywood for my bench.
If you have access to machinery, it’s worth it to look at the larger sizes (2×8, 2×10, 2×12) as these are cut from larger trees and generally have fewer defects. I have some 2×8’s (no.2 SPF) that i got at the big orange store. They had just opened a new pallet, so I picked through and I’ve got some acceptable pine for some doors I want to build.
I’ve had them drying out for a couple of weeks now and they don’t seem to be moving a lot.When I built my bench (before I discovered Paul’s design), I ordered 2 sheets of 3/4″ Baltic Birch plywood. For some reason, it comes in 5’x5′ sheets instead of 4’x8′. Anyway, by ripping the sheets down the middle, I laminated the four layers into a 3″ thick slab and it turned out fine. Very heavy and stable. Also, with the limited indoor shop space I have, the 5′ length has worked well.
10 April 2015 at 12:16 am #126396i made mine 20 inches by 60 inches and find that I quite like the size. One trick i discovered to a plywood bench. Make the top layer 1/8 or 1/4 plywood or hardboard and tack it down rather than gluing it down. That way when it gets munged up, it can be easily replaced.
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