workbench top

[wing nut]

what is a good thickness for a workbench top?

[closed for business]

my workbench is about 3.5" thick solid ash, topped with about 16" of junk and bins of screws and other stuff i have to sort through.

[EricU]

I have a Scandinavian style bench made from "the Workbench Book."
I think mine was made from 8/4 maple, so thinner than 2" The sides are 3-4" tall. The working side was made from 8/4 stock, the back side was laminated from 3 layers of 4/4 stock.

In any event, it's plenty stout, I beat on it pretty good.

[Foggy]

A 1/2" or thicker steel plate recessed to flush with the table, directly over a support leg, is handy when you need to beat on something.

[cputnam]

Are you a hand tool guy, power tool guy or hybrid? What do you build or want to build?

[wing nut]

both hand tool, and powertool, most of what I've built has been dressers, side tables, cabinets, I do some turning.

[jteneyck]

Mass is your friend in a workbench, especially if you use hand planes. That said, I built my traditional style bench following plans from Frank Klauz. It looks a lot like this one and is a great bench in every way. Building that tail vise was quite a challenge for my skills back then, but it still operates as smoothly today as when I finished it.



The top looks massive, but the main field is only about 1-1/2 to 2" thick, though it is surrounded by pieces around 4" thick. Not sure what it weighs, but a lot, and it's super stiff with no racking when you plane on it. I used an old lab bench top for the field in the top.

My main bench is made from another old lab bench top, and is about 1-3/4" thick. The base on that bench is just 2 x 4's, so it's not nearly as rack resistant as the Euro style bench, but it has served me well for more than 20 years.

No matter what you make, flat is important. Rack resistant is important if you are a hand tool guy; not quite as important for a power tool user or assembly bench, though it's never a bad thing.

John

[Peter Tremblay]

Mine is 3" of hard maple and I like it. I also don't think I would want to go much thinner.

[Phil S.]

Another question is whether you want to use holdfasts or not. Bob Lang wrote a good article on that subject in Pop Wood some years back. We discussed top thickness here a while ago and IIRC Bob suggested 2-3/4" as an optimal thickness if you're using holdfasts, with poorer holding power on either side of that number. But as Bob concludes in his article, "Get your holdfast first, and experiment with different-size holes and different top thicknesses." YMMV

Phil

[Bibliophile 13]

Mine is 3" thick, and it works great.