Benchtop Lamination Suggestions?

[Rob Luter]

Greetings to all,

I'll soon be opening a project to improve my workbench. I'm planning on building a traditional style bench similar to the Holtzapffel bench (Link: http://www.woodworking-magazine.com/blog/content/binary/Holtzapffel4-21.jpg) that Chris Schwarz brought to the Sindelar Tool Meet this past June (Link:http://www.woodworking-magazine.com/blog/See+John+Sindelars+Astonishing+Tool+Collection+Jun e+910.aspx).

I plan on fabricating the top from a three layer sandwich consisting of two layers of 5/4 plywood I use at work topped with a 5/4 thick QS White Oak Tabletop I picked up at a surplus lumber sale a local custom furniture maker had. I'll skirt the whole top with oak as well. It should be pretty solid (and heavy!) when I'm done. It seems almost sacrilegious to use QSWO for a bench top but it was cheaper than the maple butcher block slabs I priced at any number of places. I expect it will look pretty sweet too.

The dilemma is what to use to laminate everything together to create a solid slab. PVA? Epoxy? Screws? Other?

All input is welcome.

[Eric Hartunian]

Sounds like you may have another dilema. Just because stock is quarter sawn, does not mean it won;t move. When you glue that QSWO to the plywood(which won't move at all), it may delaminate when it expands/contracts. I'd recommend just using the QSWO, with no plywood backing. That way, when it moves, it isn't fighting the bond with the plywood.
Just my opinion, which I've been told many times is wrong.
Eric

[John Schreiber]

I would worry about the fact that the top is different from the bottom. I think that the oak would end up bending the plywood. Even with aprons, there would be so much stress, cracks would be likely.

[Michael Schwartz]

Consider making a side grain laminated butcher block style slab out of construction grade southern yellow pine or fir. You can make a pretty solid bench this way, and since the materials are cheap, you can make it as thick as you want.

[Mike K Wenzloff]

My current benchtop is a 3-layer sandwich, but it is the core which is solid wood. It's held up long enough I don't remember the year I built it. The solid wood is Douglas Fir. I used a flat surface, a sheet of plastic to cover that flat surface, a lot of two-part System Three epoxy and a lot of weight to simply hold everything together for a couple days before I moved it.

I would not try to use the solid as the top surface. Might work, but I doubt it in the long run.

The advice to laminate lumber is a good one. Use the least expensive of the mentioned softwoods.

Take care, Mike

[Rob Luter]

Thanks for the well reasoned advice. Perhaps I'll turn the QSWO tabletop into a QSWO tabletop instead of a workbench.

[Michael Schwartz]

A hardwood like Maple or Oak will be more dent resistant, but I think with a softwood, you would be ok, as long as you are not hitting it dirrectly with a hamer. Its a work bench too, not a dining room table. As long as it is functional it doesn't matter how it looks. For a bench, the most important factor is its weight, and mass, the strength and joinery of the legs.

Build the legs like you were timberframing a barn. Just make everything hideously massive.

And, you need a bench to make a bench, so if you make this one out of pine, and you come across a bunch of oak, maple, or beech someday, you will have a bench to make the bench with :cool: