Advice on rehab of older workbench slab?

[Ken Platt]

Folks -

I just came home with an old workbench slab I found for $50 on craigslist. It's 8 feet long, 29" wide, and a very solid 3 1/2 inches thick. It appears to be made of maple, 16 pieces. It's a bit rough, and will need some surfacing. It seems to be bolted rather than glued together (see the pic). If it was ever glued, then a lot of the glue joints have failed, as there are separations here and there between the boards. Also, some of the boards area a bit higher or a bit lower than the adjacent boards.

So, I'm wondering if I should try to take it apart and work on each board individually, then glue up in the usual way, or if there's going to be this giant SPROING and all the boards are going to try to turn into pretzels when I release them.

It'd sure be easier to handle as individual boards, as I could put them through my drum sander to clean off the grime. It'd be a PITA to joint and plane 8' long pieces, but I can do it. I've never glued up anything this large, either, but the Schwartz book has some tips, so I figure I can do it.

If I leave it as a slab, it's flattening with winding sticks and my belt sander, I suppose. I don't have a jointer plane, largest I have is a LN 4 1/2. I guess I could try getting a cheap hand power planer from HF, also.

I have no idea how old this thing is, but I'm going to guess at least 20 years from the patina and wear on it. The guy I got it from said he got it when a woodshop closed. He'd intended to make it into a workbench for himself but never got around to it, and wanted it out of his garage.

Anyhow, anyone want to venture thoughts on the best way to get this slab back into shape?

Thanks -

Ken

[glenn bradley]

Router sled:

http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=58

-or-

http://www.woodmagazine.com/woodworking-tips/techniques/outfitting-woodworking-shop/how-to-flatten-an-uneven-workbench-top/

-or-

http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/ProjectsAndDesign/ProjectsAndDesignArticle.aspx?id=3338

[harry strasil]

I took my new one to a Cabinet shop and had em run it thru there big drum sander. cost $15, time about 12 minutes.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/nu%20bench/nubenchsanding001.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/nu%20bench/nubenchsanding002.jpg

to glue up, do it in 3 panels, then glue them together. You can run each panel thru a planer individually if you want to before final glue up

[Jason Hallowell]

A router sled as Glenn suggested should work great. I use mine for flattening all sorts of things.

[scott spencer]

This looks like it would be as good of a time as any to acquire at least a #5 plane, or possibly a #6 or #7 to resurface it....if you buy used, you could always resell it, and incur roughly only the shipping charge. That's a great find!

[John Eaton]

Having gone through this myself I thought I'd chime in.

In my case I bought an old work table for $15 at an estate sale. Maple strips held with threaded rod, on a steel base. The top was horrible - drill holes everywhere and bits of metal and drenched with oil (obviously it had lived the life of a workbench in an old machine shop or service station) - but for $15 I figured I had nothing to lose. I took it apart and started out looking for metal to pull or pry out - took a while - then I filled what areas I could with wood filler and got the top relatively smooth but not perfect. Next I flipped the table over and started working on the better side - there were some holes (where the table legs attached and where some drill tips had made it through) which I filled. Some of the laminations were coming apart so I pried slightly apart and re-glued and clamped. After all that I re-fitted some all-thread that a friend had given me and got the table relatively flat. I wasn't looking for perfection, but a good work surface for one end of the shop. Next I worked on getting the top smooth with hand-planes and a bit of sandpaper. When I was satisfied I applied 3 coats of BLO and after a couple of weeks of curing, applied past wax. I had already sand-blasted the base and primed/coated with Rustoleum Dark Machinery Gray. This is the result:
http://www.modusmodern.com/woodworking/workbench1.jpg

http://www.modusmodern.com/woodworking/workbench2.jpg

Not perfect but very servicable and it didn't cost me much of anything but some time.

Now the guy who offered up the all-thread had dome something similar, only he took it a few steps further. He actually ripped apart every lamination, re-glued in sections that would fit his planer then finished up using a router sled. He made a couple of comments about the process (told me he would never go to that extent again) - seems there were small bits, staples and brads all through his table which couldn't be seen or detected - while cutting he lost teeth in his saw blade, and then while planing he nicked those, plus while routing the did a job there too. We had come up with the differing methods and he actually said I did it the right way, as after all the aggravation and wasted blades he coudn't look at his bench and really appreciate it. I'm telling you all this so that if you go that route you make sure you take plenty of precautions to getting any foreign substances out of the wood, etc and learn from what we both did. Just my 2 cents.

-- John

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Take it apart and shave a scosh off the glue faces to get to fresh wood for a new glue up. So what if the wood springs around? Those wonderful steel rods will sock it all down tight and you'll never know.

[Larry Edgerton]

I just picked up an old shuffleboard game that was used for a workbench, but I think I am going to return it to its former purpose and put it in the basement next to the pool table. Although.... I've never played table shuffleboard sober, maybe its boring?

[Simon Dupay]

It could be an old bowling ally so be careful of any metal!

[Leo Vogel]

I agree with Simon. That sort of looks like an old bowling alley lane, and if so, it is loaded with nails that you can't see. That is about the right thickness for a lane.