How often do you flatten your workbench?

[Clifford McGuire]

Happiness is a freshly flattened workbench. I built this about 25 years ago. I think it's the third time I've flattened it. So, that averages out to every eight years. I used an old #7, LV LA Jack, and a LN #4 with a York pitch (for some gnarly grain).


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I've used GF's Arm-R-Seal in the past. But this time I used the GF Enduro-Var water based satin urethane. It doesn't add any amber color to the maple. Little sheen because it's satin. It also doesn't feel slippery.

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I'm ready to go for another eight years! How often to you flatten your workbench top?

[David Eisenhauer]

Question: If you do this once every eight years or so, how long do you put the task off or waffle over whether or not it really needs re flattening before you actually re flatten the top? What finally drives you to saying, "ok, no more putting it off, I got to re flatten this top"?

[ken hatch]

Question: If you do this once every eight years or so, how long do you put the task off or waffle over whether or not it really needs re flattening before you actually re flatten the top? What finally drives you to saying, "ok, no more putting it off, I got to re flatten this top"?

Yep inquiring minds want to know :).

Nice looking bench, shop made?

ken

[steven c newman]

When parts start to "rock" on the bench.....
3 times in 7 years....

[Robert Engel]

Never have. Occasionally I scrape it to remove residues.

[mike stenson]

When parts start to "rock" on the bench.....
3 times in 7 years....


This, and.. so about 8 years ago.

The stains don't bother me, and my bench is plenty stained. I pop any glue off though, and wipe up any finish that ends up on it too

[roger wiegand]

I try pretty hard not to do things to my bench that will make it un-flat. It's been 25 years now. There may be some seasonal movement, but it's not detectable without instruments. Nothing rocks.

[Clifford McGuire]

Question: If you do this once every eight years or so, how long do you put the task off or waffle over whether or not it really needs re flattening before you actually re flatten the top? What finally drives you to saying, "ok, no more putting it off, I got to re flatten this top"?

The tail vice was a bit higher than the rest of the bench, by maybe 1/16". Just enough to catch on things and not be able to place things flat across. Made for a little wobble when a board was clamped. I flipped the benchtop over, but couldn't find any mechanical reason.

And the final straw was a whole lot of stains and dings. The finish had worn off a few areas, including the legs.

[Clifford McGuire]

Nice looking bench, shop made?

ken

Thanks. Yes, I made it from scratch.

It's a Frank Klausz style bench. I had a book long ago.....I think it was called The Workbench Book. It had discussions and measured drawings for several styles of bench. It's served me well over the years.

[Mike Allen1010]

Thanks Clifford for your interesting question. My bench is 8 foot long, soft Maple, shop built. As a matter of regular maintenance, I routinely scrape the surface, primarily to remove spilled glue.

I guess on average I resurface my workbench every two years. For me there are two main benefits; reestablishing a flat working surface, particularly for where my bench dogs align with my tail vice. This is where I do the bulk of my planing. Secondly, and unexpectedly for me, planing the work surface makes everything a lot lighter in color (back to the natural color of soft Maple), versus the much darker patina that is acquired in my shop overtime. I much prefer the lighter color, and if my bench is flat and something's not working with a given plane, I know where to look for the problem/solution.

All the best, Mike

[Andrew Hughes]

I flatten mine twice a year. Because I like my bench really flat around the dog holes where I hold boards to plane.
I have uninsulated shop it doesn’t stay flat all year long.
I use a foreplane.

[Derek Cohen]

First a photo of the top taken after it was built ((April 2012) ...

https://i.postimg.cc/sxdVHTSm/Accessories6-zps8638aa42.jpg

The bench top was planed down for the first time about 12 months ago (in other wirds, 7 years later). This is the surface before that occured ...

https://i.postimg.cc/MKyg77tm/1a.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/9MRnrZrT/6a.jpg

The bench to is good repair, with no major dings, however it developed a slight hollow along the centre. This needed to be planed out so as the top could be used as a reference surface.

After planing down, it looked like this ...

https://i.postimg.cc/NffdYGd3/D4a.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/wvXwx18p/D5a.jpg

I probably should not have waited 7 years. One should monitor/check the flatness regularly, and plane it when it reaches a point where it is no longer acceptable.

Edit to add:

After flattening, the surface was slightly roughed using a toothing blade. Finish was a single coat of Danish Oil - just enough for protection against glue or water, but not enough to make it slick.


Regards from Perth

Derek

[David Eisenhauer]

Thanks for the response Clifford. I never really completely flattened both of my individual split top 12" wide x 8' long slabs so that they were totally coplanar to each other and just recently addressed the worst of that after using the bench for a few years. My driver was to finally buy a longer, decent straight edge to use across both slabs when I noticed some rocking of something when planted on both slabs. I do like your bench. Thanks for sharing.

[Jim Matthews]

I'm with Bob Engel.

I use a Starret straightedge for my reference.
I don't expect wooden things to remain flat or straight in my basement shop.

[Tony Zaffuto]

Got to change my spectacles! Opened this thread, thinking it read "how often do you FIND your workbench" and not "...flatten..."!

For the record, I found mine this past Saturday, as I put away my tools and cleaned off the debris. With everything off, I did take a peek at the flatness - not bad. Last time I flattened it? A year or two, maybe three. Oak was repurposed and decades old when I remade the stock into a bench, which is now several decades ago!

[bill epstein]

Not to go off on a tangent (but I am), I'm building my first large project right now on the bench I made last year. Although the top edge of the tool tray I included is perfectly aligned with the bench top, I'm just too messy and stuff in the tray is constantly in the way of moving the construct around. Going to remove the tray, extend the top and resolve to put things away. :D

[ken hatch]

Not to go off on a tangent (but I am), I'm building my first large project right now on the bench I made last year. Although the top edge of the tool tray I included is perfectly aligned with the bench top, I'm just too messy and stuff in the tray is constantly in the way of moving the construct around. Going to remove the tray, extend the top and resolve to put things away. :D

Bill,

That can be a problem with tool trays, and yes mine does the same thing. And yes on an earlier bench I took the tool tray off and made another slab. After a couple of months working sans tool tray I replaced the replacement slab with the tool tray and every bench built since has had a tool tray. You either can't live with 'em or you can't live without 'em. There is not a lot of in between.

BTW, good luck on the the resolution.:p Back in my flying days I noticed there were two types of mechanics. The first was each tool had a place and each tool in its place, if the tool was not in its place they were lost. The second would just drop the tool when finished with it and when the tool was needed again would just pick it up if and this was a big if no one had moved the tool. If that happened they were lost.

Using tool trays depends on what kind of mechanic you are.

ken

[chris carter]

Not to go off on a tangent (but I am), I'm building my first large project right now on the bench I made last year. Although the top edge of the tool tray I included is perfectly aligned with the bench top, I'm just too messy and stuff in the tray is constantly in the way of moving the construct around. Going to remove the tray, extend the top and resolve to put things away. :D

This is part of the reason my tool tray is at the end of my bench. I get a large working surface and the only time it comes into play is with long boards. Even then, the tools that stick up are positioned so that I can typically avoid them, or only need to remove one tool. The tool tray is deep enough for the other plethora of tools to sit below the surface of the bench. The tray is offset lower than the bench top by a little under half an inch to allow for a couple decades of bench resurfacing before I have to resurface the tray along with it.

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[Tony Zaffuto]

Going off on another tangent: to those here that have a shop large enough to have a second bench, what size and style is that second bench? I have a 4' X 4' bench, heavy enough with that footprint, to do all the tasks I do on my other bench (30" X 72").

[Clifford McGuire]

Not to go off on a tangent (but I am), I'm building my first large project right now on the bench I made last year. Although the top edge of the tool tray I included is perfectly aligned with the bench top, I'm just too messy and stuff in the tray is constantly in the way of moving the construct around. Going to remove the tray, extend the top and resolve to put things away. :D

Just for kicks, I took a picture of how my bench looks right now. Stuff that ends up in the tray are 1) Things that would make me cry if they fell off the table (LN Bronze plane, dovetail saw, fretsaw) and 2) things that like to roll (mallet, marking gauge). I also have a small box for the tiny things (6" ruler, marking knife, pencil, small square).

I would be lost without my tool tray. But I've always had it so I don't know any different.

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[ken hatch]

Going off on another tangent: to those here that have a shop large enough to have a second bench, what size and style is that second bench? I have a 4' X 4' bench, heavy enough with that footprint, to do all the tasks I do on my other bench (30" X 72").

Tony,

Small shop but lots of workbenches. I have four on the floor and one stacked in the corner of the shop. Out in the back garden are two more. On the floor of the shop are three Moravian style benches and one French/English. The bench stacked in the corner is a portable Moravian. Of the three Moravian benches one is a portable that is used as a sharpening bench, the other two are full sized benches in daily use.

I'd love to shed a couple (My son-in-law may take one home the next time they visit) because I have the hardware to build another full sized Moravian with some slight changes I want to try.

ken

[Tony Wilkins]

Tony,

Small shop but lots of workbenches. I have four on the floor and one stacked in the corner of the shop. Out in the back garden are two more. On the floor of the shop are three Moravian style benches and one French/English. The bench stacked in the corner is a portable Moravian. Of the three Moravian benches one is a portable that is used as a sharpening bench, the other two are full sized benches in daily use.

I'd love to shed a couple (My son-in-law may take one home the next time they visit) because I have the hardware to build another full sized Moravian with some slight changes I want to try.

ken
Ken, are Moravian benches like potato chips?

[Tony Zaffuto]

All benches are like potato chips! They are the ultimate tool!

[ken hatch]

Ken, are Moravian benches like potato chips?

Tony,

That and JNATs:p,

ken

[David Eisenhauer]

Tony, I would like to build a 2' x 2' heavy Ruobo type auxiliary bench with a leg type vise to be used primarily for joinery work. That bench would be in the 40" tall or so range to ease my lower back from bending for extended periods when doing close work as well as to bring the work up to my aging eyes. Space in my shop is very tight, so I need to re arrange some big items to open that spot up near to my main bench. I do use a Moxon to raise stuff for sawing, but chisel work could stand to be brought up to a higher elevation. One bench is not enough:).

[george wilson]

Since I have heart trouble, I would use an electric jack plane to flatten a work bench. On a very fine setting I can get excellent results with my Bosch. I made an attachment for mine which I can hook it up to a shop vac with. Failing that, or when I’m doing something away from the shop vac, I just tape a plastic grocery bag to the exhaust which works fine. I can finish up with my Fein half sheet sander. They are quite expensive, but at 21,000 rpm, they cut like crazy.

[Chris Fournier]

My main bench is 22 years old and I have flattened it three times. I live with season changes until I can't and then go to town. It gets oiled and waxed to keep glue at bay. It is hard maple at the front and the last 14" at the back are soft maple, this part moves the most.