Repairing Laminated Maple Top

[Pat Turner]

So I got a workbench from work. It has a 1-3/4" laminated slab top, that was cantilevered out from the workbench frame by 8" or so. Then someone hung a drawer unit off the top with half the weight on the unsupported front edge and half about 1/3 from the rear. As you can see, the front 3" just broke off, and it's splitting at a second glues line. I want to reuse the top as a misc workbench (and thus keep clutter off my 3" thick maple bench/assembly table), so I've decided to rip the top at the second failed glueline (about 6" from the edge). But I'm wondering about the rest of the top- anyone have any experience with these? There is a second failling joint in the middle of the top. I could rip through it and joint and glue...

As for the drawer unit, I was planning on hanging it off a sub base glued up from 2 thicknesses of 3/4" plywood (not sheets but 3.5" wide strips running front to back along the legs, as well as across the bench at the front and rear of the drawer unit.



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[Brian Tymchak]

Well, whoever made the top must have really skimped on the glue.

I would do as you say, rip the top at the failing joints, then joint (or rip) the offcuts to get fresh long grain wood and reglue. Working with the thin strip might be a bit tricky to get a uniform width across it's length so that the top is uniformly wide across it's length. I would rip that thin strip off, then joint it and the 3" edge piece and glue those together. then joint the edge of the smaller piece and glue to the larger piece. Or I might be inclined to just lose that thin strip all together, unless the overall width of the top is critical or you are OK with the extra work to include it.

[Wayne Lomman]

If there are multiple joints failing you can either rip and re-glue the failed joints and hope the rest are OK or while you have the gear set up, rip all the joints and re-glue. It depends how important this is to you. Is a quick repair all you need or do you want it spot on? Cheers