Quote Originally Posted by Michael Schuch View Post
Nice glue up technique.

Did you joint the faces of the boards flat then run them through the planer before gluing them up? Or did you just use the factory milled faces of the boards?

Now that is is all glued up how to flatten it? The last work bend I built I was able to take the top to the production shop where I purchase a Dewalt RAS from and they put it on a wide belt sander that flattened it in a few passes for $50. I don't live there any more. I know I could probably purchase and learn to use a plane properly for the job but I would worry about how flat the surface actually is. I was thinking about building a sled for a router to ride on that would allow me to use a router to get the top pretty flat.
At the time I only had a number 4 Bailey that still needed some work. I used lots of glue, lots of clamping force, caught lots of squeeze out with a drop cloth, but I glued up the 2x4 without doing any surfacing operations to them after purchase. I did leave them stickered in my garage for about two weeks before glue up to make sure nothing was going to move too much. That part went fine. I used the facotry milled faces of the boards at the time because I did not have the tooling to improve them.

Once it was out of the clamps I bought a shiny new #4 from the home store thinking it might be easier to fettle than my vintage #4. After much reading here and frustration there I ground the iron on the new blue plane to about a 3" radius crown and opened up the mouth a lot. Pretty agressive scrub plane, it can shoot chips feet into the air. I treated the slab like a board, winding sticks, scrub plane, once it was down to flat and scalloped I went with the grain to take the scallops out. Then flipped it over and repeat.

I think the key to good enough flatness is an agressive scrub plane. Remember my top still had the rounded corners on all the 2x4 glued into the slab. Remnants or the roundovers are still in my top, I don't see any reason to take more off the top, it is not like I am assembling miniature gyroscopes for NASA. Also, I didn't take every scallop on the underside of the benchtop off, just got to down to where I felt good about the areas around the legs providing good contact.

For my 24x48 top (Doug Fir) with an agressive scrub and beginners luck on glue up square and true I recall it took about two hours with the scrub to get to flat and ready to start smoothing, per side. There was chasing of the work around as I had the slab F clamped to a couple saw horses. I didn't bother smoothing the scallops out of the finished top until the entire bench was assembled. That weighed a bit more and scooted around the floor a lot less.

I guess flatness is possibly a rabbet hole. One the one hand chasing perfection or visualizing perfection is a potentially noble or worthy thing, but you can also bang out a couple birdhouses and then maybe take on a small firewood rack or a small elegant trashcan before you get to a point where you can say "My bench top is not flat enough for this project to some out good" and plane it some more flatter so you can make bigger more complex things.

For my RAS I have a folding stand for it, I think labeled "MSUV" for miter saw utility vehicle. All folded up it can stand in a corner and not take up too much room, but unfolded out in the driveway the side rollers for the work to ride on span about 10-11 feet and can be easily leveled to the cutting surface on uneven terrain.