Can you make a workbench top with Eastern Red Cedar?

[Greg Muller]

Sure would be beautiful...

Is it tough enough? Any specific challenges in using it?

Greg

[John Keeton]

Worked with some of it many years ago. It is very soft wood, usually very knotty, and the knots are often loose or open. Most eastern red cedar is a mix of sap wood and heart wood. Seems if one could find heartwood, it would be clearer and less knotty, but still quite soft. I have seen it weep sap pretty bad, too, depending on the knot content, sapwood, etc. It doesn't seem to hold finish very well, but some of the newer finishes may work better. Like I said, it has been many years since I used any.

[Jim Becker]

You "can", but I wouldn't...as John states, it's pretty soft stuff and the dents over time could become an issue.

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Greg, ERC is, as the others have mentioned, a soft wood. That said, I have seen it advertised for flooring and have seen one instance where it was used as flooring. It will darken considerably with time; I have an old fifties vintage cedar chest and it's heartwood is nearly black. Many, many knots, but the experience I have had with them is that the knots are usually tight. For a worktop I would make a two piece top and not let the knots extend through as continuous flexing of a bench might loosen some of them. If the wood is cured well, and it does air dry well, there should be no issues with resins leaching out. ERC that has set long enough completely loses its aroma and if the smell is a problem just hitting it with a light coat of shellac will kill it. It's about as hard as white pine, which is used in building, so if its a bench where you won't mind seeing a scratch or small dent I don't see why "knot". ;)

[Tom Veatch]

In my opinion, red cedar has three strikes against it. Weight - not enough, Stiffness - not enough, Hardness - not enough.

If you want to use a softwood, you should be looking at Southern Yellow Pine (SYP). Even if you want to use a hardwood, you should be looking at SYP.

[glenn bradley]

Too light, too soft but, beautiful.

[Sam Yerardi]

In addition to not being hard enough, another problem with cedar in this application is cedar is not very tough and depending on where it gets struck with a blow, it could splinter the wood.

[Peter Quinn]

If this bench has to be flattened at some point cedar might be a bad choice. The dust and shavings from cedar seem to make me wheeze quite quickly even with a mask. I would avoid building a jointers bench from it as I would never want to reflatten it again.

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Well, the consensus is "no" - so I guess I'm voted down. I would say it depends on the final use of the bench. As just a support for finishing, etc and you don't mind scratches and dings I think it would be OK. I use it for a good many things as we have a lot of it (lumber racks, etc). To buy the wood money would be better invested in, as has been mentioned, SYP. I mainly wanted to say if you are contemplating using it in a bench that needed to be flattened periodically then no way. The wood itself is soft....but those knots are really hard.