Yellow Pine vs Douglas Fir for Workbench

[John Cavanaugh]

So im getting ready to build a bench/assembly table and Ive been looking at some of the plans that recommend using construction grade yellow pine. But the problem is where I live all the construction grade 2 by's are douglas fir.

Can anyone explain the tradeoffs between douglas fir & yellow pine in terms of structural stability etc for a workbench.

--
John Cavanaugh

[Corey Hallagan]

Yellow pine is just plain tough wood. It is stong, semi water resistant and harder than doug fir. It is getting harder to find. Here in the midwest we use to be able to find it quite a bit but homecenters don't sell it here anymore.
Recently we reroofed my dads house. This house was built in the late fifties. I had never seen a roof that had 1 x 6's as a sub roof but that is what it was. We tore off 3 layers of roof down to the wood and that is what it was, Yellow Pine and 90 percent of it was in fine condition other than nail holes.
Corey

[Steve Cox]

I don't know much about Yellow Pine (don't have it up here), but Doug Fir would not be my choice for a workbench top. I used it for the frame of my workbench and it has been great but for the top it is too soft and also splinters easily which I wouldn't like on the top. BTW are you sure your construction lumber is Doug Fir? Most that I see sold today is Hem Fir which is a mix of Doug Fir and Western Hemlock (mostly Hemlock). The Hemlock is not as good a wood as the fir as far as strngth and durability go.

[Frank Hagan]

John, Douglas Fir is a good substitute for Southern Yellow Pine. The US Forest Products Lab at http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/ has an info sheet on Douglas Fir at http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/TechSheets/SoftwoodNA/htmlDocs/pseudomenziesii.html where they say that it is rated as moderately resistant to decay, and is used for building and construction of things like railroad crossings, ship and boat building, etc.

The Glen-L boat building site has this to say about it:
"DOUGLAS-FIR
(yellow fir, Oregon pine)
34 lbs. per cubic foot, 2.83 lbs. per board foot
This boat building lumber comes from the coastal areas of the Pacific Northwest. It is not a true fir, thus the hyphenated name. Unseasoned green lumber is common and should be avoided. The heartwood tends to be pinkish to yellow in color, with mature growths being of straight, uniform, and dense grained. Younger trees tend to have more knots. The wood is strong, moderately hard, moderately decay resistant in the heartwood, splits relatively easily, does not bend or steam bend readily, and is fairly easy to work. Douglas-fir is sometimes used for making spars in place of Sitka spruce, and in these applications, the wood should be free of defects, well seasoned, and of vertical grain for strength."

The problem you may have is finding good enough stock. Its been a long time since I've been able to find tight grained DF. When I built my little sailboat, I used some old DF my father had bought 20-some years ago. It was rough, construction grade lumber that he used for a patio cover. It had beautiful straight grain, and today would be sold in the hardwood stores as "vertical grain DF". Every now and then you can find 2x lumber that looks pretty good, but usually there are wide growth rings.
SYP is used in the south for the same uses as DF is in the west. I believe SYP is a little more dense, but my boat builder friends in the south lament the wide growth rings in plantation grown SYP just as I do the rings in DF.

[Norman Hitt]

I have used plenty of both SYP and D Fir over the years, but can hardly get SYP out here anymore. Straight grained D fir is maybe a little easier to find then ?Straight grained SYP, BUT, there is NO Comparison to the surface hardness of D fir to SYP. As mentioned in a post above, the D fir would be fine for the bench's Base, but is way too soft and splintery to make a good Bench Top, whereas the SYP would make an excellent top. If I ever get that far down on my "to do" list, I plan to search out some Good SYP to make a bench top for myself.

[Dan Forman]

We have no SYP in Washington either. Does anyone have any suggestions for a cost effective substitute other than douglas-fir?

Dan

[Dale Rodabaugh]

Just my 2 cts.worth.I used Ash to build my bench,worked out very good.:cool:

[Frank Hagan]

Yeah, good point about the bench top. Douglas fir is soft enough that it probably isn't appropriate for the top. My last bench was DF, and I ended up surfacing it with 7/8" hardwood flooring after destroying the top. If cost prohibits you from buying or making a hardwood top in the traditional way, you might think of a sacrificial surface.

[Mike Monroe]

I have a stash of 106 year old Doug. Fir 2 x 10's. Got them from an old building that was being torn down to make way for some condo's, they were the rafters. I used them for floor joists of my house when I built it 11 years ago. You can't buy 2 x 10 lumber like that anymore, straight and tight grained. Pretty neat stuff.

[John Cavanaugh]

I guess Im going to have to re-evaluate my options for the top. Im thinking about putting a sheet of hardboard on the top, maybe something like a 1/8 or 1/4 hardboard as the sacrificial cover for the df.

Thanks for all the info/suggestions.

--
John C