Beginning a workbench - Input greatly appreciated

[dspeer]

I am at the beginning of an adventure - I am going to build my own workbench. So far, I have 31 oak boards that used to be church pews, ripped and planed to either 3/4 or 1 1/4 inches. Beautiful lumber that I got for a pittance.
Boards are 3 1/2 inches wide.
I don't want to mess this up, so I respectfully ask you woodworking pro's for your input:
I a certainly not going to glue 31 boards at the same time. Also - of course boards are not 100% even - when put on top of each other, some stick out in the middle, some at the edges. I am not good with hand planes, this bench is supposed to change that. I am aware of flattening techniques using a router.

How would you proceed? I have about 32 inches total width. Should I glue 4 8 inch sections, flatten them individually, then glue the 4 sections? Or glue up one 5 inch section and then add piece by piece to that until the full width is reached?

Should I force the ones that stick out by clamping vertically while glueing? Should I straighten one edge before clamping?

I would really appreciate your input.

Thanks!

Dietrich

<img src=" =142898474&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=2"></img>]http://s723.photobucket.com/user/Dietric...gt;</img>

[Anji12305]

Have a search of opposed grain orientation for gluing boards together.

I would glue no more than three at a time. Boards this size are heavy.

Before you begin, you'll need a known flat surface for assembly of each subsection.

A clear space in a garage with a piece of heavy insulation board laid
flat would be my suggestion.

I would not concern myself with flatness on the top and bottom surfaces, at the beginning - although it will save lots of trouble if you get the "show face" close during glue up.

Remember that the traditional orientation of boards for benches
has the wider flat surfaces glued together. If those are flat and the boards are straight - things will be great.

Save any boards that twist or wind for other projects.

Garret Hack published a FWW article that showed stepwise assembly.
It's not his first bench, so he's anticipated many of the problems us beginners face in building a bench.

I strongly recommend the split top design, with a removable batten
down the center. This makes for easier truing of each side, and provides access for heavier clamping from the center.


Lastly, the time to fit any vise hardware is before putting the top
on the base, when the completed benchtop is upside down.

Drop me a PM if you want details into my (hopefully) last bench.

Jim

[JGrout]

face to face gluing is fine in fact the bench will be stronger for it.

you want the laminations to look like the bottom and the top drawings shown here not the center



Gluing is really best done as you suggest do sets of three then take those sets and do another round of three sets until you are done If you flatten each glued set on the jointer (I would skip the first round then do this) on one side and orient that face down to the clamps you should be able to keep the entire unit flat on the bottom with little difficulty If you are careful with your setups you should still net a plenty thick enough benchtop once completed

The surface you use to glue on does have to be in plane to reduce the chance of twisting. I use two parallel boards from your stack on edge )jointed, ripped and then one planer pass) to make long winding sticks aligned with the length for the sawhorses or workmates or whatever it is you have to make the surface across by sighting and then shimming the legs to get them in plane. Start with only two clamps on the platform to keep the plane then add more clamps to finish up the lamination

I would encourage the use of a router to do the final flattening the parallel rails and bridge are far easier to set up than hand planing unless you really want to get both feet wet right off doing it by hand

[dspeer]

This is really good advice, thank you very much! I would rather not try my 'skills' with hand planes on this project too much. Chances are I would screw up a little detail, and that would drive me crazy every time I see the finished bench.

I am working with reclaimed old lumber, so at least the thicker boards are very stable, there are no twists at all.

I really appreciate the input!

[daveferg]

Just plan ahead for the type and location of your vises---also, no question--make round dog holes---that way you can used both round dogs and hole-downs.

[smithgl12]

Here's my recent thread on making thin oak boards thick for a workbench. I had a mix of thicknesses so I glued 4/4 to 8/4. Then waited, planed and glued those 3 inch piece together. until just under 12" wide. The whole stack I hand planed one face for reference then lunch box planed the other side. check out Bartee's thread in the handtool forum too.
or here
http://mysaw.com/shop/shop-projects/2015-workbench-two/
It puts mine to shame BTW.


I'm behind a bit on the documentation but almost done with the bench.

[cwarner]

I'm going to go against the grain here a bit.  As a hybrid woodworker who had transitioned over the years and now work 80% hand tools and 20 % power I'd propose that this project is just the thing to improve your handplaning skills.  Your workbench is just another shop made tool, in fact think of it as a huge jig. The top doesn't need to be dead flat to within a knats butt hair, and if you get a little tear out here or there, it does not affect the function of the bench one bit. 

A lot of people view their bench almost as a piece of furniture, but if you can get over that and realize that once it's done you will be pounding, drilling, chiseling etc etc on it and it is going to get dinged up through use.  With that in mind, five yourself some grace, take this opportunity to fine tune your handplane skills on this project so you are up to snuff for your first oroj xt you will build ON that bench.  Just my opinion though.  Good luck!

[wood-chips]

Good luck and encouragement on building your workbench.
I just finished building my workbench last year in time to use it to make some Christmas gifts.
Here's the link to the thread I posted about my build. Workbench

When you start the edge glueups start in the middle and work out from each side.  That way you will end up with very close to parallel front and back edges.  I say this from past experience (not my workbench) and others who have experienced issues when edge gluing long boards from front to back.

What happens is that if you glueup from front to back, when you get to the opposite edge you'll find that the final edge is not straight but now has a slight curve.  The only way to remedy it is to straight line resaw the edge.  If too much is required to straighten the edge you will see the adjacent glue line curving compared to the straightened edge of the top.

Another thing I would do is use dowels/dominoes/splines when doing the edge glueups.  It will make your glueups much less stressful and you will have much better results.  I wouldn't rely on biscuits because they don't have the rigidity for large stiff boards that the other methods do.

[FrankAtl]

This thread is around 2-1/2 years old. He might still be working on the bench but chances are he's finished it by now.

[wood-chips]

Well I sure wasn't paying attention