To finish or not to finish a workbench base question

[Paul Erickson]

I am at the glue up stage with the base for my new workbench. For budget and other reasons, the base is made of Fir, and I am wondering if I should put a finish on it, and if so what? I have seen many discussions about what finish to use on the bench top, but so far have found no discussions about what to do with the base. I can think of reasons to finish and reasons not to, but would appreciate hearing others thoughts and experiences.

Thanks in advance.

cheers, Paul

[Kevin Grady]

I made my base out pine and did not finish it, mainly because I'm lazy and cheap. I'd rather apply finish to something I'm not beating on. :)

[Rodney Walker]

Fir is soft and dents easily. I would say either no finish or an oil finish. I'd stay away from varnish or other film finishes just because they'll get beat up and are more difficult to repair. I didn't bother to finish mine.
Rodney

[jamie shard]

I like oil. It provides just a little bit of protection to help with clean up of glue or varnish spills, but it isn't so slick that everything slides around.

[Zach Dillinger]

No finish on my workbench base, oil finish on the top. No reason to finish either, really, I just liked having a little bit of anti-glue on the benchtop.

[Adam Cruea]

I'm probably going to finish my entire workbench with Danish Oil.

Do I need to? No, not really. But the OCD part of me will go absolutely nuts with an oiled top and non-oiled base that are slightly different shades. I can handle the color difference in the wood I'm using (hickory), but I can't handle shade differences.

And besides, why not? It's your work bench, do what you want. The worst that happens is you don't like it and have to re-do it, but at least you learned something. The best that happens is you like the look and keep it, and as an added bonus, the wood will be less likely to shift and will repel stuff a little better (like in my case where my tools like to taste man flesh. . .after I'm done cussing and shaking my finger, the oil might repel the blood lol).

[Joe Cunningham]

I didn't finish mine, but if I was so inclined, I'd probably use danish oil like I did on the top. It is enough to make clean-up easy (glue pops off easily) but not so much to make things slippery.

[Andrae Covington]

My bench is douglas-fir and I applied an oil finish to the base as well as the top (I used polymerized tung oil). Like Adam, it would have bothered me to only finish the top. I agree the oil provides a little protection and makes it easier to remove glue spills (and brush the dust and shavings off, for that matter), and it's easy to reapply more oil later if needed.

[Jim Matthews]

Perhaps no finish is necessary on the faces, but seal the bottom of the legs.

This might not be necessary if there's something between the end grain and concrete.

[Jim Neeley]

I have a DF top that I soaked up with a 1/3 BLO, 1/3 Oil PolyU / 1/3 MS. Poured it on, let it soak in then wiped off. I wasn't looking for any film finish , just a little to soak in the top to make glue removal easy. Along the way it popped the DF grain.. made it real purdy!! :)

[jamie shard]

I like oil. It provides just a little bit of protection to help with clean up of glue or varnish spills, but it isn't so slick that everything slides around.

Doh, I was talking about the top, you were talking about the base... An easy to apply oil-varnish mix or wiping varnish seems to make sense for the base. If you are worried about the sheen being different, the oil-varnish mix is more satin if you don't do multiple coats and build it up on the surface.

[Prashun Patel]

I would only bother to finish it if I had left over finish that yr looking for an excuse to get rid of. That includes old blo, poly, or shellac for me.

[Brian Kent]

I finished mine because it's pretty.

[glenn bradley]

Mine is fir. I used BLO. I will fill small dents with the leftovers from using epoxy if I feel like it. The finish has held up well for many years.

[Frank Drew]

I dislike unfinished wood, even on something as utilitarian as a workbench; in my experience, unfinished wood eventually gets grimy looking. I used tung oil on my bench's hard maple top and oak base.

[Jack Curtis]

Now that's interesting and illustrates how different we all can be. I love unfinished wood, the feel, the look, the lack of shiney. And my Japanese tools provide a nicely burnished unfinished surface.

[Terry Beadle]

Your work bench is your base of operations in hand tooling. It should get the protection on the base legs and cross members it deserves. BLO works great and one or two coats will last for years and years. The top is a different story and gets into the preferences areas. I use thinned BLO on my top. Very thin. Just enough to keep glue popping and resist stains.

That's my 2 cents and worth every penny ! Hoot!

[Frank Drew]

Now that's interesting and illustrates how different we all can be. I love unfinished wood, the feel, the look, the lack of shiney. And my Japanese tools provide a nicely burnished unfinished surface.

Okay, fair point; I worked on a Japanese-style house many years ago and every board that went up (mostly cypress) was hand planed, and they all had a satiny glow. I'm not sure if that quality persists, however; no finish subjects the surface of the wood to higher levels of humidity, maybe enough to raise the grain even if just by a little bit. If that happens, goodbye glow.

In any case, a shop is a different, messier environment than a jewel-box house.

But, yes, a hand-planed piece of wood, left bare, can be a thing of beauty.

[Jorge Rico]

Paul,
My first bench was made with 4 x 4 Douglas Fir legs and resided in my garage, which became damp once the winter rains started. For this reason I used linseed oil on all of it to minimize movement between wet and dry cycles. The linseed oil was also liberally applied to the bottoms of the legs to hopefully slow down any moisture migrating through the concrete slab. I don't know if that treatment did anything for the bottom half but I can tell you that it made a difference for the top, which was 3/4" maple glued over plywood. I've since gotten Chris Schwarz' book on workbenches and am planning a bench build will be more along the lines of a roubo bench.

[Paul Erickson]

Thanks everyone for the input. In order to minimize dimensional change and to ease clean-up I have decided to use a friends suggestion of a BLO/Varnish?Turpentine mix. Will show the final product when it is finished. Thanks again for the time and attention. Really appreciated.

cheers, Paul