Advice on building a workbench with my current equipment

[Joe A Faulkner]

I'm assuming the No. 9 is a Millers Falls. I'd get either it or your No. 4 nice and sharp as well as our 62 and consider adding a No. 7 or 8 to your collection. You would then have everything you need to fine tune your bench top.

[Larry Cronin]

I was not clear my no 9 is a Stanley 9 1/2 block plane.

I am looking at adding a 7, started the search for a used one initially.

[John C Cox]

I think you have gotten some very good advice so far.

To recap - test the grain on each piece before glue up. Make sure that the grain is all running the same direction or you will be doing a lot of sanding to get rid of all the chips and tearout.

During glue up - watch for misalignment. Put the face side down against the bench or floor. This will help minimize misalignment.... And greatly reduce the work leveling.. Let's face it - the bottom side of your bench top is a much lower priority for leveling.

Use a toothing blade in your #4 to quickly knock down high spots. You can make your own by cutting shallow slots in a cheap iron ($4.00 Buck brothers irons are available at Home Depot). I used a dremel to make mine. I just notched 1/16" deep notches in the edge about every 1/8". Sharpen as usual and go at it. It cuts like mad!

Follow the toothing iron with a standard iron in your #4 to cut off the toothed surface. This goes very fast. Once you get close - either sand or call it good.

Check progress with winding sticks or a big long level.

Last - good enough is good enough. It doesn't have to be optically flat.

[Robert Engel]

Hey Joe,

You can joint a face to whatever the capacity of your jointer then place the jointed face down on a sled and pass through the planer so you're planing the opposite side. Then flip and plane the unjointed ridge left behind. You need to have at least 75% of the width jointed. The guard on the jointer will have to be removed. Make a euro style guard clamped to fence.

Spend ALOT of time getting the edges perfectly 90° to the top and perfectly straight before gluing up. For me this was the most time consuming part of building the top.

Beyond, that, don't drive yourself crazy trying to get a perfect glue up. I recommend a hand plane (#6 or 7), winding sticks and a straight edge to dial in the top. Wait till the top is mounted on the base to do this.

Hope this helps.

[William Fretwell]

I found using winding sticks very difficult on my bench. Along the whole length of bench; impossible. My varifocal lenses do not help. I got some help from a laser line along the full length of the bench at the front edge. When you know the front edge is straight you can use that as a reference across the bench with a long level or winding sticks. Scribble on the high points, plane them off & check. It just keeps gradually getting better. Hand tools don't over do something easily. When it's as flat as you can get it, leave it a day and check the next. The front 6" of the edge is the most crucial as that is where you plane the rails. Check it again a year or two after you make the bench as it will move with the seasons.
Find someone to loan you a laser line if you don't have one. The one I used is accurate to 1.5mm over 30m; nothing else will give this level of accuracy (outside of an optical bench!). Next best is a long well made level.
In use the work piece 'averages' out the very small variations in the bench top unless it's very thin. The bottom of the plane averages out the ride on the top. Theoretically, with flat wood any plane length would take a consistent shaving with even pressure. In practice removing consistent 1/1000" shavings is more difficult as you make the plane longer. This level of accuracy you can work to is easier with a really flat bench.

[Kris Cook]

Lots of good advice given here. Having just finished a bench the one thing I would mention is - I built my top slab in sections with the intention of running them through the planer before final assembly. I splined my strips that made up the sections before glue-up (splines referenced from the top face). The sections were very close to flush and I didn't end up running them through the planer at all - just cleaned them up by hand. I wasn't relishing the thought of running the heavy maple sections through the planer anyway.

Good luck on your build

-Kris-

[John C Cox]

That's a good point. Use the planer and jointer to your advantage. If you can plane 13" - then glue up and plane 13" wide sections first..

In this case - I would:
joint up all the 13" widths.
Use the jointer to straight line the edge enough so it will go through your planer reliably
THEN plane all the jointed 13" widths All the sections go through at one setting... Then adjust thinner as needed and all sections go through again... Do this until all sections are cleaned up and the same thickness.

Then do your glue up of the 2 planed sections. All you have to contend with for final flattening is the one center glue joint...

Now - you will still have to flatten it out by hand somewhat... Uniform thickness does not mean flat... But you won't have to contend with all the high and low boards.

[Joe A Faulkner]

While it will take longer, you may want to take a slower approach to laminating your top. The extreme approach is to add one board per day. With this approach you only have two boards to position and control and one of them is easy to manage. When I glued my bench top, I first made sections of three boards and then proceeded to add one section to the top per day. If you glue up two 13" slabs, you have two very heavy, difficult to manage pieces to pull together. The plus of this approach is that these separate pieces, in theory can be precisely milled using your power equipment and should come together easily, but you will need a second pair of hands or some creative shop aids to manage these slabs.

[Pat Barry]

While it will take longer, you may want to take a slower approach to laminating your top. The extreme approach is to add one board per day. With this approach you only have two boards to position and control and one of them is easy to manage. When I glued my bench top, I first made sections of three boards and then proceeded to add one section to the top per day. If you glue up two 13" slabs, you have two very heavy, difficult to manage pieces to pull together. The plus of this approach is that these separate pieces, in theory can be precisely milled using your power equipment and should come together easily, but you will need a second pair of hands or some creative shop aids to manage these slabs.

Glue will be set up enough to temporarily release the clamps and add another board or two in a half hour

[Larry Cronin]

I was thinking of doing my glue up in the one board at a time method. I work from home and could get a few boards done in a day.

I am still in the hunt for a No 7 plane.

Thanks again to all of you for all the help.

Larry Cronin

[Nick Stokes]

Where are you located? There are guys scattered all over the country that could help you. And even some beyond.

[Tim Janssen]

Maybe this is sacreligious but why do you have to make a bench top out of lumber. I made my bench top out of three layers of 3/4 MDF with a top layer of 1/4" hardboard, that I can replace when necessary and a 3/4" thick oak boarder. I use 3/4" dowels as bench dogs.
my workbench.jpg
Heavy and rocksolid!

Tim

[David Eisenhauer]

I will point out one issue - hardboard is slippery and makes work hold down more difficult. I imagine some will say that you can work around this, but the slippery aspect of hardboard is real. My first bench was a converted hardboard-covered TS catch bench and it remained slippery for ever. If I wanted to go the sheet-good table top material route, I would forego the hardboard.

[john zulu]

Hello,

I am thinking of building a workbench, I cant bring myself to buying one.

The size would be roughly be 26" by 65". Bigger will not fit in my shop.

I plan to make it out of hard maple and have the top be about 3" thick. I own a 6" Delta jointer and a 13" Dewalt planer.

I am nervous that I will never get the top flat with my equipment, I have watched a bunch of videos but most seem to have at least an 8 inch jointer.

Can it be done with my equipment? Am I just twisting myself into a knot for no reason?

Thanks in advance for any advice or direction.

Larry Cronin

A majority of the work can be done with the power planer and jointer but a hand plane is still needed or a power router. The final flatness is needed to be tuned by hand.
This is where a power tool is limited. Don't worry about it. Learning is a process

[Chris Hachet]

Thank you all for the suggestions and encouragement.

I have to get started before I convince myself that I should wait and look at buying again.

Larry Cronin

Before I built my bench I used to walk past the expensive European benches at my local woodworking stores and think wow, someday...Once I built my bench I went on to thinking ohhhhhhhhh wow I dodged a bullet by not buying that thing. Building a second bench for the shop at the moment.