Jonathan Wagner
06-17-2013, 7:47 PM
I'm finally getting around to attempting to turn the pile of lumber that has been sitting in my shop into a laminated top workbench. I managed to get some #2 common hard maple at a pretty good price. Of course that means several of the boards have knots. Luckily, I'm able to bury most of the knots in the middle of the 4" thick top and shove the rest to the bottom. However, the presence of the knots mean changing grain direction and tear out from my LV BU jointer. I resharpened and was able to alleviate further tear out to get a fairly flat surface (full-width shavings and no wind).
Which brings me my question: how much should I worry about the remaining tear out on the glue surfaces? My thought is that it shouldn't be much of an issue and that the glue will fill in most of it and even if it doesn't, there is still over 95% coverage. I just wanted to get some input from people with more experience than me. I would hate to have the bench explode while chopping mortises just because I was too conservative with the board width (ie, lazy) to do proper surface prep.
Thanks,
Jonathan
Which brings me my question: how much should I worry about the remaining tear out on the glue surfaces? My thought is that it shouldn't be much of an issue and that the glue will fill in most of it and even if it doesn't, there is still over 95% coverage. I just wanted to get some input from people with more experience than me. I would hate to have the bench explode while chopping mortises just because I was too conservative with the board width (ie, lazy) to do proper surface prep.
Thanks,
Jonathan