New workbench top advice?

[Paul Schaefer]

Thanks for all the responses.

I'll be using the MDF or plywood that I have because it's already paid for, and it gets some stuff out of my shop.

What I like about MDF is it's really flat and heavy as sin. What I don't like is that it's sensitive to moisture and I think the edges will be fragile (though either edging it with wood or rounding over edges as Ros Cosman suggests would probably take care of that. I'm also worried about it's ability to hold lag screws for a vise, though I guess I could either use through bolts or put a piece of wood in the mdf 'sandwich' where the vise will be. How long of a lag does a big cast iron vise need, anyway?

Plywood seems like it would hold a lag better. Chris Schwarz rates laminated plywood as a 'not bad' option for a quick benchtop.

Either way, I've seen a lot of recommendations to put a 1/8" wear surface of hardboard on though Rob Cosman doesn't bother. If I did that, I could use through bolts for the vise and not worry about the bolt holes catching various debris.

[Kris Cook]

Paul - good luck with your top. I haven't seen the Cosman video but I think edging the MDF with wood is a sound approach. I have a workbench that now serves as an outfeed table but was my workbench for a few years. It has a plywood top and is wrapped (two layers) with 4/4 red oak left over from a flooring project. I have a vise mounted that is lagged into the oak - two lags on the face and two lags underneath. It is very solid and has been in service for at least 15 years.

If you don't have something solid to anchor the vise to, the through-bolt idea may serve you best.

Reading the comments about how a workbench is treated made me think of a story that Tage Frid told in one of the books of his that I have - I had to dig the book out to remember it completely. Basically, when he was an apprentice in Denmark, the master charged 1 krone for every cut a journeyman made in a benchtop by mistake. A young journeyman was going into the army, so on his last day when he got paid he told the master that he had made a sawcut in his bench. The master thanked him for being so honest and deducted the 1 krone from his final pay. The master was very surprised when he came into the shop and found the one cut had sawn the bench in two.

[Ron Selzer]

my bench is made out of scrounged wood.
4x4 for legs and frame
fire rated 3/4 plywood for top, then years later added 4/4 rift sawn white oak wrapping the top and sides
sand it down and refinished one time in ten years