Will Holdfasts Tear up Pine Bench?

[Steve H Graham]

I'm still hacking up my old workbench to make it useful for wood. I got a question. Am I going to have problems with holdfasts opening up a pine top? I was thinking I might glue some little squares of maple into the top and drill holdfast holes into them, so the maple would resist compression. But maybe that's over the top. Horrible pun not intended.

I know I'm putting too much work into this old bench, but I really enjoy the practice.

[Ryan Mooney]

Not to badly, mine is borg "white wood" which is not as nice as pine and it hasn't been a real problem to speak of. The edges have rounded over a smidge but seem to have mostly stabilized at some point.

[John Vernier]

Which kind of pine do you mean? I'm using the Gramercy holdfasts in my southern yellow pine bench top, and it seems to be holding up fine after a couple of years. There a couple of small chips on the hole edges, not from the holdfasts but from other random events - inevitable on a hard-working pine surface, I think. I don't notice any significant deformation due to the holdfasts. I imagine some of the softer pines would take more of a beating.

[Steve H Graham]

I insist on the best. Home Depot six-by-sixes.

The other problem is that the workbench is only 1.5" thick, but I think I can get around that by gluing an extra board to the underside.