Work Bench Top Finish?

[richard poitras]

What are you guys using to finish if any your workbench tops? I have a maple butcher block top in long grain and was thinking on use Danish oil for the top. (I have a can sitting on the shelf) What are your thoughts …..

[Thomas Bank]

Soaked mine down with a tung oil finish and give it a re-coat every now and then.

[Carl Beckett]

I used Danish because it's what I had sitting there at the time. Every now and then I reflatten, and plenty of nicks and dents makes it something i didn't spend a lot of thought on.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Cigarette ash and red wine.

Plus - various blotches of stray dye powder.

[richard poitras]

Cigarette ash and red wine.

Plus - various blotches of stray dye powder.

Kent I ment before the first party...

[Leo Graywacz]

Shellac. Easily repairable. Makes glue cleanup easy as it won't stick to it. It's a film finish so liquids won't penetrate it. Or you could use a pre or post cat lacquer. It is a bit more durable and will resist alcohol much better.

[Thomas Hotchkin]

Richard
I used Minwax gloss poly on my workbench top. It's a little harder then semi-gloss, then rubbed out with a 3m white pad. It's held up quite well over the years. Don't forget to do both up and lower surfaces. Tom

[Prashun Patel]

Hi Richard. The Danish oil is a perfect choice. Most finishing gurus would recommend an oil and wax combo but some also like oil and varnish. Film finishes are generally not favored because they take badly to pounding and cutting and can be a little trickier to repair.

I have used whatever was on hand tho.

[glenn bradley]

I am also in the oil camp. I used BLO. I have refreshed the paste wax every year or so. Glue. shellac and the like don't stick and it is fairly tolerant of scratching. I BLO'd this back in 2007; here's a pic from this morning (now that I see it under the light of the flash, I think I'll hit the paste wax again today:o):

243195243196

BTW, a special thanks to Kent for getting me to spray coffee all over my monitor :D:D:D


Cigarette ash and red wine.

Plus - various blotches of stray dye powder.

[Leo Graywacz]

I don't care if my work benches look pretty. If you do care then the oil method might be better for you. I want a quick and easy method to put it on and refresh it when it is necessary. Shellac does the trick for me. 10 minutes to dry and you are ready to roll. Doesn't matter what you have on the bench as Shellac is an isolation coating. Just hit the old coat with a sander and apply one or 2 new coats and you are ready to go for another 6-18 months depending on how much you beat on your bench.

Mine are not pretty, they are work benches and that is how I use them. They are full of screw holes and router marks and dings and dents from hard work on top of them.

[Kent A Bathurst]

BTW, a special thanks to Kent for getting me to spray coffee all over my monitor :D:D:D

Happy to be of service, Glenn.

I made my bench as teh very first thing I every did in woodworking - at least I was smart enough to realize I needed it before I could be effective at anyting else.

Bark and better red oak joists from a remodel next door. The house was 125+ years old. The yield was maybe 30%.

I put BLO on it - flood, flood, flood. THen, as the BLO weeped back out over 2 weeks, wipe, wipe, wipe.

That was the first and only time I wasted - my opinion only - my time on a finish for the workbench. That was 12+ years ago.

There have been more knocked-over beers and red wine than could possibly be counted - like the old line when you walk into a cheap bar: "I've got bar tabs older than your Scotch."

Plus cigarette ash. Plus - no kidding - interesting color blotches from stray dye powder and ebonizing chemistry, and Lord knows what else. The most embarassing bit - whhen my LN router pland showed up, I could not wait to use it. Have a nice groove 1" in from the edge.

Every so often, between projects, when the bench top is actually visible, I'll grab the ROS and some 50g discs and remove 6 - 12 months of sins. I also, every couple years, drill and plug holes from over-drilling mistakes, patch some wayward chisel gouges, etc. Someday will probably address the router plane test track.

It is a workbench. The furniture goes upstairs or to clients. Plus - with the RO - reasonably hard to dent it, unless I get really angry about something and just take a whack.

[Howard Acheson]

One of these two treatments will work very well.

A film finish (lacquer, shellac, varnish, poly varnish) is not the way to finish a workbench top. A workbench is going to get dinged and film finishes will crack or craze or be otherwise damaged. Once a film finish is penetrated, it looses its effectiveness and adjacent areas begin to fail. No treatment is going to make a soft wood benchtop harder. I much favor an "in the wood finish". Here are two that lots of folks find effective.

First, is an boiled linseed oil and wax finish. Sand the surface to 180 grit. Mix paraffin or bees wax into heated boiled linseed oil. USE A DOUBLE BOILER TO HEAT THE OIL. The ratio is not critical but about 5-6 parts of boiled linseed oil in a double boiler with one part paraffin or beeswax shaved in. Take it off the stove. Thin this mixture about 50/50 with mineral spirits to make a heavy cream like liquid. Apply this mixture to the benchtop liberally and allow to set overnight. Do it again the next day and again the following day if the top continues to absorb it. After a final overnight, lightly scrape off any excess wax and buff. This finish will minimize the absorbsion of any water and you can use a damp rag to wipe up any glue excess. Dried glue will pop right off the surface. Renewal or repair is easy. Just use a scraper to remove and hardened stuff, wipe down with mineral spirits using a 3/0 steel wool pad (a non-woven green or gray abrasive pad is better), wipe off the gunk and apply another coat of boiled linseed oil/wax mixture.

My personal preference is for an oil/varnish mixture treatment. Either use Minwax Tung Oil Finish, Minwax Antique oil or a homebrew of equal parts of boiled linseed oil, your favorite varnish or poly varnish and mineral spirits. Sand the benchtop up to 180 grit. Apply the mixture heavily and keep it wet for 15-30 minutes. Wipe off any excess completely. Let it dry overnight and the next day, apply another coat using a gray non-woven abrasive pad. Let it set and then wipe off any excess. Let this dry 48-72 hours. To prevent glue from sticking apply a coat of furniture paste wax and you're done. This treatment is somewhat more protective than the wax and mineral oil as the varnish component adds some protection from not only water both some other chemicals also. The waxing makes the surface a little more impervious to water so you can wipe up any liquid adhesive. It also allows hardened adhesive to be scraped off. Repair and renewal is easy. Just go throught the same scraping, wiping down with mineral spirits and reapplication of the BLO/varnish/mineral spirits mixture and an application of paste wax.

Both of the above treatments are quite protective but are easy to maintain and renew. They do not fail when the surface takes a ding.

[Jim Becker]

BLO is all I put on mine. Maybe twice a year after a light sanding to get any irregularities smoothed over.

[Kirk Poore]

Mine has a quarter inch masonite finish. When that gets chewed up enough, I'll unscrew it and add another quarter inch masonite finish.:)

Kirk

[Dan Hulbert]

My bench came from a GM patternmakers shop. The top skin is masonite coated with shellac. If it was good enough for patternmakers, it's good enough for me. Also a good place to use up the dregs from a can of shellac. When I have some shellac to get rid of, I do a quick scrape with a card scraper, clean off the glue and the dust and then slop on a fresh coat. I think I coat it about once a year. OBTW (gloat) the bench came with an Emmert vise attached.

[Mel Fulks]

Doesn't get any better than that! You had us at "GM pattern makers shop".

[Dan Hulbert]

Yes it does. My Dad was on the shutdown crew for the foundry that made the Vega engine block. They could take whatever they wanted for scrape metal prices. Back then it was a nickle per pound. I did have to wait about 20 years to get the bench from my Dad, but it was more than worth the wait.

Also got a set of shelves that used to hold finished engine blocks. I can climb them and they don't even wiggle. I keep them next to my 7 drawer Lista parts cabinet that also found it's way out of the foundry.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Mine has a quarter inch masonite finish. When that gets chewed up enough, I'll unscrew it and add another quarter inch masonite finish.:)

Kirk

Yeah..good point....I have a neighbor that is a cycle freak; been in the bidness forever - works for a major motorcycle + marine mfg - commonly known big name. He has > a dozen. Raced bit in his younger years. Now, doesn't even ride them much - he restores them.

In his den is one he restored 2 years ago. Out-of-business Italian called Parilla. Work of art, parked beside the office desk. His wife is a saint, of course.

He is working on a 2d Parilla..........but two other bikes have interrupted that project since he started it 18 months ago.

Anyway - he commissioned a workbench from me. Made it out of RO. Custom height to his spec at ~ 40". Three sections below the bench top. Each has a 5" drawer just under the bench top, and a drawer/tray at the bottom - heavy duty glides, because that's where he stores his "in-process" engines.

On the bench top, I put in a HD lazy susan, with tee-tracks and custom wood blocks, and tee-nut bolts and handles. Those let him mount an engine, hold it upright and stable, and rotate it as he works on it.

And - finally to the point - the top is 2 @ 3/4" birch ply glued and screwed, with a RO rail all around it - 1/2" proud of the ply. There are 3 dead-nuts square and identical 1/2" MDF panels on the top, and he has 2 spares. At one end is mounted a HD mechanic's vise. The reason for the "thirds" on the MDF is that the panel under the vise is subject to oil and WD40 and lord knows what else. So - it can get trashed, flipped, rotated, and finally replaced while the other 2 panels go happily about their buisness.

I still prefer my ash + red wine finish.

[Stew Hagerty]

I used the old classic. Equal parts by volume: BLO, Beeswax (I threw in about 20% Carnuba), and Turpentine (although I used Odorless Mineral Spirits). Not only does the oil penetrate, but it carries some of the wax down with it and thereby giving it a much deeper level of protection. You rub the soft mixture (it melts in your hand) in, then let it sit for a while. I left it sit for a couple of days but overnight would work just fine. Then buff the top with a "Waxing Brush". I have two, one that you can chuck in a drill and a hand model and I use them to buff out wax on all but the most delicate things. The finish is fairly durable; much more so I think, than if you put the oil and wax on separately, and it is easily repaired as well. I keep a jar of it on my shelf all the time.


Cigarette ash and red wine.

Plus - various blotches of stray dye powder.

My "Man Cave" is a strict non-smoking area. However, red wine stains are another matter altogether. I do have to admit though, I have more coffee stains than wine. Ever try to get granola chunks out of a semi-gloss finish? :eek:

[Mike Wilkins]

Minwax Antique Oil Finish. Maybe a sanding and touch up each year (when I remember to do it between projects).

[Stew Hagerty]

My bench came from a GM patternmakers shop. The top skin is masonite coated with shellac.

[QUOTE=Dan Hulbert;1993202My Dad was on the shutdown crew for the foundry that made the Vega engine block.[/QUOTE]

Vega engine block huh? So... I guess you're not the first to use that bench when working with masonite then... :D

Crap, did I just date myself or what?!?!?!