Question about workbench top board orientation

[Jake Elkins]

About 5 years ago, I picked up some cheap white oak and locus old barn beams. I salvaged a lot from these, and the leftovers (about 12 sticks) have been taking up lots of space in the shop. Most are 4"x4", some closer to 6"x4". While each is about 8' long, they will not yield long lumber when jointed/planed due to voids, defects, etc. While I have no idea what to do with these, I originally bought them thinking about a workbench. I already have a good bench I finished last year, but I figure these things are kinda like clamps (can never have too many . . .?).

Anyways, I have thought about making a bench with these, but by gluing up not 6 eight-foot boards (to make a 2'x8' bench), but by gluing up 24 two-foot sections (also yielding an 8'x2' top). I have never seen this done, and I figure it might be challenging to square up the bench (with 16 total feet of end grain to deal with), but my question is, could/should this be done? The only real drawback I can see is the requirement for multiple 9 foot clamps, of which I can make a few with pipe clamps. Surely, strength will not be an issue with a 3.5" thick top. As an advantage, it would make adding a shoulder vise (I think that what they are called -- basically an "L"-shaped appendage at the left end of the bench) much, much easier. I could always add a skirt to the rear, if I think it might be a little weak in the center. Or "breadboard" the "front" and "back" using tongue/groove and lag bolts.

I'm not sold on doing this, but I figured that it is not done for a reason. So I ask the woodsmiths, what am I missing?

Or an alternative question: What to do with 12 far-less-than-perfect oak beams? There's gotta be something better than firewood.

[david brum]

I think you'd want some mechanical means of joining the ends of your 24" sections, like tongue and groove. Grizzly sells woodworking benches which are made of a bazzion finger jointed sections. I can't remember any complaints about them. I don't think finger joints would be practical on a 4 x 4, but Tongue and groove would be easy.

You asked about squaring up the bench during glue up. I think you'd want to glue up small pieces to make the individual boards. After the glue dries, joint and plane each board flat. Then glue the boards together to make the bench top, making sure to offset the T & G joints. There is a lot less to manage that way. You also don't have to buy more than a few long clamps, since you're only glueing one section at a time.

Also make sure to orient all of the individual pieces with the grain in the same direction if you'll be using a hand plane to flatten. DAMHIK.

[Jamie Buxton]

So you're considering running the grain direction in the 2' direction, instead of the usual 8' direction? You can do it, but there's a couple of drawbacks. First, the hygroscopic expansion of an eight-foot width is going to be way big.

A better scheme would be to cut out the bad knots and such, and end-joint the short lumber into 8'-long sticks. The end-joints don't have to be real great. They only have to hold the sticks together until you glue up the whole top. After you get the 8'-long sticks, you make them s4s, then glue them side by side to form the top. You try to arrange the sticks so that no end-joints are right near the end-joints in the flanking sticks. The resulting top is very strong.

[Jim Andrew]

Why can you not plane and rip the beams, if the piece has a bad side, turn the piece 90 degrees and check it. Sometimes you can just rotate pieces and turn the good side up. As for butting short pieces together, why not? If they are in the middle of a glue up, shouldn't make a lot of difference. I make handrails, they are usually 3 boards thick, and I use shorter pieces butted together to make a long rail. Try to put a full length piece on top. I don't fingerjoint. There is a fingerjoint routerbit in the Rockler catalog.