Benchtop

[Matt Jutte]

My son and I are getting ready to glue the top of his new Southern yellow pine workbench but before we start is there anyone in Central Ohio that has a belt sander that will flatten 27" wide? I am not good with a hand plane and my son is too young to try! Just looking for Ideas to make this less painful.

Thanks

[Jerome Hanby]

If you have a lunchbox planner, you could glue the top up in two sections and run them through in tandem. Then you would only have the one joint to match up...

[glenn bradley]

What Jerome said.

[Trent Shirley]

Not in your area and do not have a large belt sander but can offer an alternative if you end up needing it.
I built a work bench for a friend of mine and had to flatten the top.
I flattened it using a home made router sled. Essentially you clamp long flat boards to the sides of your table and level them to each other and the surface you want to flatten.
You make a sled that rides across the top of those boards and has a channel across it's center for your router to slide across. Then you can use your router to flatten the table taking one pass at a time along the length of your table.
There are a number of good articles for using a router sled to flatten a bench top. You just have to make the sled nice and sturdy so it does not bow in the middle from the weight of the router.

I had originally tried gluing up the table in groups of 4 or 5 to make gluing easier and keep things flatter. Worked well until I went to glue up all of the groups and they moved on me before the glue set some going high, some low. Ended up with an inch thick top when I started with two inch thick. Good learning experience though.

[Ed Labadie]

Trent is correct, router sled is the way to go....

Ed
200577200578http://www.sawmillcreek.org/images/misc/pencil.png

[Luc Vincent]

Just out of curiosity...what router bit would you use to accomplish this with the sled planing rig??

[Jerome Hanby]

Just out of curiosity...what router bit would you use to accomplish this with the sled planing rig??
I haven't done this type of operation (yet), but I think I would use a bowl bit like you would use to make router bowls.

[Ed Labadie]

I used a 1 1/4 dia. mortise bit.

http://www.amazon.com/Freud-16-108-4-Inch-Diameter-Mortising/dp/B0000225XF/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1309966539&sr=1-4

Ed

[David Hostetler]

The sled idea is the one I typically see. I am about to undertake this same project soon. My laminated plywood bench is really bothering me, I want one with way more mass, and SYP is cheap, and easy, and as long as I go kiln dried, relatively stable.

[Matt Jutte]

ED - That is spot on! Excellent method - Thanks for your insight.

[Jake Elkins]

I was in the same boat a couple weeks ago, and was facing multiple options. I had a guy locally with a 50-something inch Timesaver that I could cart my top to, or I was going to use a router sled, or go to town with an old Stanley #7 (30 bucks plus an afternoon with some sandpaper, cheaper than a router bit). The top is 8' x 32" x 4.5", so moving it is something that I want to minimize. Anyways, I ended up using the handplane, and after just a couple hours, some winding sticks and some beer, both top and bottom are really flat. I glued mine up with ~ 30 4/4 boards (walnut), but I glued them one at a time and used several cauls. 1 hour in the clamps, and I added the next one. Took a while, but there was little flattening required when the whole thing was done, and the assembly was nearly square. By no means am I a handtool purist, but I think this was definitely the way to go.

[Chris Merriam]

Check the Woodcraft store in Cincinnati. The one down in Lexington has a giant Powermatic planer that they run for just like $.50 a linear foot. They're owned by the same guy so probably the same setup.

[Neil Brooks]

I think all the usual options -- as always -- were well covered.

When I did mine, I should have glued it up in two pieces, each narrow enough for my planer/drum sander.

I considered the planer sled, but ... first ... made about three phone calls. On the third, the cabinet shop said .... $25, and we'll run it through our dual drum (50+" width) until you call it flat.

Yeah, my top was heavy, but ... it was a minor inconvenience in the scheme of things, and the outcome was excellent.

I love the IDEA of the router sled, but ... something about it ... to ME ... just sounds like work ;)

[Joseph Tarantino]

Trent is correct, router sled is the way to go....

Ed
200577200578http://www.sawmillcreek.org/images/misc/pencil.png

is it my eyes, or are there ridges/lines in the second pic to the left of the sled in the area that appears to have been flattened?

[Ed Labadie]

is it my eyes, or are there ridges/lines in the second pic to the left of the sled in the area that appears to have been flattened?

Yup, slight ridges. This was the bottom of the bench, I got a little carried away with my depth of cut. :o A few minutes with the Festool in Rotex mode made short work of them. Lighter cuts on the top worked better.

I had initally tried a handplane for flattening, didn't work well at all. I'm using Honey Locust for this bench, its hard, heavy and has lots of grain reversal. Tearout was frequent and severe. A low angle plane probably would have worked, I don't have one. Weighing in at 220 lbs, ruled out my drumsander. The router sled ended up being easiest for me. I kept all the parts for future flattening if needed.

Ed