Advice need on 30" wide workbench top

[John-Paul Volkenant]

It is possible for me to get a single piece of maple, 30" wide, 2 1/4" think, 8' long for use as my new English style workbench top. The piece will be bone dry...dried in a vacuum press kiln. Is there any issue to using a single piece this wide? I know that Roubo used single slabs, but were they 30" wide?

[Sean Hughto]

I don't have any real expereince with maple 30" wide - I wish! But I guess the fear would be that a board that wide would inevitably cup at certain times of the year with seasonal changes in humidity. Folks typically glue up maple tops from boards that are pretty much quarter sawn. This makes for a stable top.

[glenn bradley]

I agree that single thick pieces are pretty cool. I assume they were used in the past because they had access to them. Laminations would be more stable but, the benefit is probably proportionate to your climate conditions. Someone who has one of the really great books on benches will probably chime in with some better data.

[David Weaver]

I would laminate pieces. It's nice to see a slab that wide, but you're going to have to plane a good bit of the thickness off of that unless it's gone through a wide belt sander or something before you get it.

And if it's flatsawn (presumably it is), it'll cup every time the humidity changes.

You would be much better off if you want to go with two pieces to get the two dead quartered pieces out of a fully flatsawn tree, with the core/pith cut out.

[Dan Sheehan]

I laminated a top from hard maple that cupped 1/2 inch over 24". The staves were not quarter sawn and some sort of breadboard ends might have helped. But I wouldn't use maple again unless quartered and that might be expensive for a 30" slab. Still thinking about what to use next time, maybe Poplar of DF for me.

[Chris Fournier]

I really doubt that a piece of hard maple in those dimensions is truly possible - for a bench quality top that is. I have some pretty wide maple but the widest is soft maple and the plank is about 28" wide, it is defect free though which is what makes it exceptional to me. By the time you flatten the piece that you propose I'd wagger that you'd finish at about 1 1/2" if you were lucky - that's only allowing for 3/8" out of flat.

I love the vibe of a slab top bench but I couldn't live with the movement. I also think that 30" is way over wide for a Eruo style bench, it is approaching assembly table territory. Again just an opinion - one amongst many!

[Dave Anderson NH]

It is possible to do, but the concerns others have are valid. I don't doubt the ability to get a piece that wide, but more than likely it is going to contain the pith and it will exhibit sections across the width which are quarter sawn, rift sawn, and plain sawn. This is where the cupping and wood movement would come from. Vacuum kilns are certainly the best when it comes to drying since they remove the moisture from the center of the wood first and the exterior surfaces are the last to dry. This produces a board which is almost uniformly dry throughout and minimizes movement. If you were able to get 2 or even 3 boards which were 10 to 15 inches wide and quarter sawn you would be far better off and the top would be very stable.

[Chris Fournier]

Dave's suggestion that 30" comprised of a few pieces is the way forward is gold.

As far as kilns go I would always prefer to use the steam kiln over the other methods. This being said I would always go with the best kiln operator I could find no matter what his process; I've seen wood ruined in the best of kilns!

I'm not sure how a vacuum kiln removes moisture from the centre first? I thought that the advantage of the vacuum kiln is that it operates in a vacuum which allows drying to occur at lower temperatures than the other processes.

[john brenton]

The Landis book goes into a little detail about the single top Ruobo. The one featured in the book was made with a large slab of maple, I think about 20" or so.

The secret to making it work was setting the top so that it would cup downward, pushing down into the legs, which are double tenoned into the top.

An English workbench is much more typically two pieces, or you can sandwich boards about a foot wide for the front, and use plywood for the back.

I would get the Landis and the Shwarz book before I even thought about looking for massive piece of lumber like that.


It is possible for me to get a single piece of maple, 30" wide, 2 1/4" think, 8' long for use as my new English style workbench top. The piece will be bone dry...dried in a vacuum press kiln. Is there any issue to using a single piece this wide? I know that Roubo used single slabs, but were they 30" wide?

[Prashun Patel]

Yikes, Dan! I'm just finishing a laminated maple top for a new bench. Oh well, I'm too far into it to change now. My pieces are 5/4ish" thick - about 20 of them.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Chris, Think of the boards in a vacuum kiln being surrounded by air when the kiln is started. As the pump starts to pull a vacuum, the vacuum first "touches" the outside surfaces of the wood and starts pulling the water off the surface of the board. Since the vacuum is continuously pulling moisture to the surface of the board, the center loses its water first and the surface, the only area the vacuum can reach, has moisture continuously until there is no water left in the board. You are correct though in that vacuum kilns use a lower temperature. This prevents the possibility of case hardening and it also results in a board with almost no checks in either the surfaces or the ends. I received a nice grounding in vacuum kilns from Carl Malstead at Goose Bay Lumber in Chichester NH who operates a small 1000 bdft vacuum kiln and a couple of significantly larger drive in steam kilns at his yard. He's done his demo/presentation on site several times over the years for our guild complete with a sawmill demo.

[Scott T Smith]

As far as kilns go I would always prefer to use the steam kiln over the other methods. This being said I would always go with the best kiln operator I could find no matter what his process; I've seen wood ruined in the best of kilns!

I'm not sure how a vacuum kiln removes moisture from the centre first? I thought that the advantage of the vacuum kiln is that it operates in a vacuum which allows drying to occur at lower temperatures than the other processes.


Chris, vacuum kilns are commonly used to dry thick planks and beams. Unless you air dry first for many years, they are the only viable option for thicker material. The top of the line are RF vacuum kilns; they use microwaves to heat the wood and encourage the moisture transfer. Other methods include convection heat and heat blankets in-between the beams.

Vacuum kilns are typically extremely expensive. Some of the models for drying timber frame beams cost in excess of 500K.

[Chris Fournier]

Ah I see what you mean Dave. The outside loses it's MC first but it's immediately replaced by the moisture from within; I get it now! I've never seen a vacuum kiln any larger than the one that you describe either. The one that I hired used the heating blankets and the operator would start to sweat bullets watching the electrical meter spin like a top. I don't know why he was sweating as I was paying! The vacuum kiln was the most expensive form of kiln drying that I used and as Scott points out I used it to dry down thick slabs that I needed ASAP.

[Frank Drew]

John-Paul,

If you're really interested in a slab top, give it a shot but be aware of all the potential wood movement mentioned by others. Have a laminated top in mind as your backup plan if the slab proves too troublesome. Having a good workbench is critical, making your own is nice, having it look a certain way is also nice, but remember, it's a tool, and function has to come before appearance, IMO.

For what it's worth, if over two decades use with my laminated maple top, I never once wished that I'd had a slab top, either functionally or aesthetically (and I'm kind of a nut about using as wide boards as possible in furniture work.)

[John-Paul Volkenant]

Thanks for all the responses.

A clarification: it is soft maple that is available to me.

I like the idea of using the quartersawn pieces from the slab and gluing them together. I'll let the sawyer know that. I wasn't really interested in having a 30" wide top, but that's what the Colonial Williamsburg benches have, according to their post on the Anthony Hay blog.

I wasn't interested in the looks of the top; I just wanted the easiest way to get a wide top.

[Johnny Kleso]

Let me add 30" IMHO is to wide for a work bench top but might be good for an assembly bench..

My bench is 32" wide but has a 18" work surface 6" tool tray and then another 6" wide work surface after that..

I use it for working wide and narrow parts and know that anything wider than 24" is a long reach across the bench..

Gluing up boards is much more easy than you can think of of especially if the top is thick..

[Chris Fournier]

Thanks for all the responses.

A clarification: it is soft maple that is available to me.

I like the idea of using the quartersawn pieces from the slab and gluing them together. I'll let the sawyer know that. I wasn't really interested in having a 30" wide top, but that's what the Colonial Williamsburg benches have, according to their post on the Anthony Hay blog.

I wasn't interested in the looks of the top; I just wanted the easiest way to get a wide top.

Don't look for the easiest way to get a wide top, look for the best way to get a stable top.

I have built three full on cabinetmakers benches for myself and four with other woodworkers that asked for help with their first benches. I can tell you that a top built up of "edge up" laminations has proven to be the most stable out of the gates and over time. My go to bench has "slab" laminations and it still moves a wee bit over the seasons after being re-flattened for many years.

Easy is not a useful or important criteria when you're talking about a workbench; everything that you build on that bench will only be as good as your bench!

[Rick Cicciarelli]

If I had access to a 30" piece of Maple I would save it for a really nice chest of drawers. I always admire extra wide boards in the antique furniture that you really just don't see any more. Seems a shame to use it on a bench, especially when I think a glued up bench would be more stable/functional. But that is just me.

[John-Paul Volkenant]

Don't look for the easiest way to get a wide top, look for the best way to get a stable top.

I have built three full on cabinetmakers benches for myself and four with other woodworkers that asked for help with their first benches. I can tell you that a top built up of "edge up" laminations has proven to be the most stable out of the gates and over time. My go to bench has "slab" laminations and it still moves a wee bit over the seasons after being re-flattened for many years.

Easy is not a useful or important criteria when you're talking about a workbench; everything that you build on that bench will only be as good as your bench!

Chris, you make good points. My current bench is made of laminated 2x yellow pine; its 4 inches thick. It has been very stable. The problem is I want a English/Nicholson bench, and my current bench top won't work for it. Its too short for one.

Do you see any problems with the Chris Schwarz cherry top Roubo? What would be the problem with using the quartersawn pieces from the 30" wide slab?

I appreciate your input. Thanks.

[Michael Titus]

Soft maple is renowned (infamous?) for movement. Laminating quartersawn boards would be much more stable.

[John-Paul Volkenant]

So that the edge of the quartersawn board is facing up?

[Frank Drew]

Good points from Chris and Rick.