Laminating construction grade lumber

[Mike Cherry]

I'm going to laminate 2x4's for a Paul sellers workbench top and I'm curious how best to deal with the rounded corners. On his blog, Paul vaguely mentions to plane it flat after laminating. Is this what y'all would do? I have also read elsewhere that folks just rip a 1/2" off either side to square it. I don't have a tablesaw but I suppose I could drink an energy drink or two and rip 7 feet of 2x4's with a rip saw 24 times or so lol.
Any suggestions on how best to deal?

[Jerome Hanby]

Not sure what kind of woodworking you do. But if you don't require a broad expanse of uninterrupted flat surface then you could leave the radii on each piece. Might help keep pencils and other round objects from rolling off. If you needed a continuous flat surface, you could still leave the radii and top the bench with tempered hardboard. Just thinking that if if it were me, I'd save the hard work for the next bench when I use fancy hardwoods for the top ('round here, hard maple qualifies as fancy <g>).

[david brum]

I made a 2 x 4 bench top several years back( It's held up fine). I glued it up without ripping the edges first. Then I planed with a #5 for eternity to get it flat. 1/2" is a lot of material to remove, but I got pretty comfortable with planing as a result. Looking back, I would either remove the edges ( this could be done with a circular saw and straight edge) before glue up or I'd find a scrub plane to make the job quicker.

The real mistake that I made was failing to orient the grain all the same direction when I laid out the top. Softwood can tear out easily if planed against the grain, and some of my boards are reversed, and create a real headache for finish planing.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I would go with ripping a wee bit off to remove the radius, then glue up, then flatten, unless you have either (a) A very large planer, or (b) a scrub plane, jack, jointer, and smoother, strong arms, and a lot of time to kill. :-) I feel that it would also be easier to glue up straight if you have the radius removed before the glue-up. You can more easily see where one board may be out of wack from the others because the edges won't line up flat.

[steven c newman]

Orient the 2x4s for grain and best side up, mark that side only. Run a jointer down the "top" edge only. Glue up, using a caul on the clamps to keep it lined up.

No sense in doing BOTH edges, if one is the only edge to show. That radiused edge isn't all of 1/2", either, just joint until the rounded part is gone. I think you'll find that you will have jointed maybe an 1/8" to maybe a 1/4" off. Jointer is set a bit deep, as deep as you can push easily. After the roundy stuff is gone, no need to mark which side goes up. IF the jointer plane has quite a bit of camber, make sure the last good pass is in the middle of the edge.

[Jude Kenny]

Mike, just on a side note: In England, a 2x4 has an eased corner with a lot smaller radius than you'd get on BORG lumber. So, for someone in England, it would not be so big of a job.

Take a look at Sellers' first workbench video and see how sharp the corner is on each 2x4 before he glues up. By contrast, a BORG 2x4 looks like it was dressed with a 1/4" roundover bit on a router.

Anyways, I'd glue the lot together and use a scrub plane to get it level. If you made the bench in 12" sections it would not be too hard to reach across as you went. The bottom could be kept as-is.

Best of luck.

[Curt Harms]

I'm going to laminate 2x4's for a Paul sellers workbench top and I'm curious how best to deal with the rounded corners. On his blog, Paul vaguely mentions to plane it flat after laminating. Is this what y'all would do? I have also read elsewhere that folks just rip a 1/2" off either side to square it. I don't have a tablesaw but I suppose I could drink an energy drink or two and rip 7 feet of 2x4's with a rip saw 24 times or so lol.
Any suggestions on how best to deal?

Do you know any Normites with a jointer & Planer that like their beverages packaged 6 per pack?

[Mike Cherry]

Thanks for all the ideas guys, I appreciate the insights. Jude, I dont have a scrub, but I do have a heavily cambered blade for my #5 that I could employ in place of a scrub. I was shooting for 12 inch sections on top so I think this might be the way to go for me. Should I really not concern myself with the bottom of the benchtop laminations? For clarification, the part of the benchtop that mates to the legs. I can leave this with the roundovers of the 2x4 intact?

[Jude Kenny]

Mike,

I'm set up the same as you, with a cambered blade in a regular plane. I put mine now in my #4 as it is a little lighter. I have fixed up some junker #4 planes to do different tasks.

With the blade sharpened up it is actually quite easy to scrub off the wood when you go across the grain. For practice you could get a rough piece of wood and try it out before you start on a bench top. I flattened a warped 2x12 this way to see how to do it.

The bottom of the laminations will be fine. Even though the rounded edges of each 2x4 will still show, you can just look at them like corrugations. You could even leave them in the top and get on with life if you wanted but I think they'd get full of dust. When I say something should be flat, I mean that you should be able to put a straight edge on it and not have that straight edge rock because of a twist, bow, crown etc. "In the same plane" might be a better term.

Make sure that the laminated secton you just made is flat on the top and of the same thickness throughout. You'll have to check the bottom for wind/warp, bow etc. but you won't have to level the whole lot flush. Think of it like the base of a corrugated #4 plane: Flat, but with lines in it.

Same thing for the front apron. You can leave the corrugations in it so long as the side that faces the leg is flat enough for you to register against when you cut the housing dadoes. If you keep the vise proud of the front of the apron like Sellers does, you could even leave the corrugations on the front of the apron as they won't get in your way.

I frequent the message board at Sellers' website too. When you mention a workbench there, pretty much everyone has built the one you are working on so it is a handy place to ask these kind of questions.

Also, please note that I work on a solid core door I ripped in half and glued together to make a 3x15 beam. So, a lot of what I say can be just pure theory.

Best of luck!

[Don Nicholas]

Why not glue up to the desirable size and their may be a local cabinet shop or Millwork store that has a wide planer or wide abrasive planer that could shave the top down past the radius edges.
good luck with your project!!

[Mike Cherry]

Thanks again Jude I think I will scrub it down as you mentioned, much thanks! Don I havent considered that idea, but I might look into it and at least see if it would be cost effective. Id kinda like to get the experience under my belt for this bench, but we'll see. Thanks so much for your input and I might document my build to share with others hehe

[Howard Thursby]

I made my workbench top out of construction lumber. I glued it up in 11" wide pieces then planed it to thickness. Next I glued the pieces together,then flattened the top with my Stanley #6 plane. It's southern yellow pine and I've been using it for a couple of years.
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[John Sanford]

Depending on how thick you're willing to have your workbench, you may want to keep an eye out for some gluelams. I can usually find a couple on the local equivalent to Craigslist any time I check, and you've got a market 5 times the size of mine. Not free, but it can save you a lot of hassle.

[Chris Hachet]

I made my workbench top out of construction lumber. I glued it up in 11" wide pieces then planed it to thickness. Next I glued the pieces together,then flattened the top with my Stanley #6 plane. It's southern yellow pine and I've been using it for a couple of years.
1.jpg

Now that is a nice looking bench top.

[Chris Hachet]

Depending on how thick you're willing to have your workbench, you may want to keep an eye out for some gluelams. I can usually find a couple on the local equivalent to Craigslist any time I check, and you've got a market 5 times the size of mine. Not free, but it can save you a lot of hassle.

Or alternately keep your eye out for cheap hardwood. I am using lumber from the classifieds and building a Roubo for under a hundred bucks in hardwood lumber...