Bench tops – Sacred or sacrificial?

[Sam_Jack]

Not too many years ago I built a ½ size bench to fit a small work space, fitted a 52 ½ and used it. I had intended it to eventually become a sharpening bench; but I got used to working on it as it suited my needs. Anyway – I made the frame from ‘skip’ recovered 4x2 (near enough) the top and apron from some 1¼ Pine decking ‘surplus’ from a job. It has stood the test of time, wear and tear. I have been considering renewing the top, as I don’t pamper the bench top; and it does reflect that. Not abused you understand, just the usual bumps, dings and scrapes and the odd nail (or blade) hole where I’ve needed to plane an awkward size board. The area around the vice is starting to look a bit ‘worn’. Mea culpa –but it is a working tool to me. Well a mate came to visit – he was horror stricken at the bench top state – “Well” says I “ I was going to trim up the top a bit and replace the run over the vice but it’s a work bench, not a piece for the palace”. Well – I got a lecture about not marking or cutting ‘lumps’ out of the bench top; seems it’s sacred, not sacrificial and working out measurements and jotting telephone numbers on that sacred surface is sacrilege. He banged on for a while, then spotted the latest job, I fetched the beers while he looked at it (not too many dings in that) and changed the subject. But, it set me to wondering; I mean I try not to beat up the bench top – I’ve even got both a plywood and MDF blank which I use for ‘the rough stuff’ but it seems I’m a hooligan.

What say you?

 

[novocaine]

keep the bench, ditch the know it all.

 

[Droogs]

its a tool like any other. When made properly it has a sacraficial part )albeit a long lived sacraficial part) in the top. You should build it with the ability to replace when it becomes too damaged. My car is a work of art compared to what I could make from scratch and cost a crap-bucket full more than the bench but it is still just a tool and gets dents, dings and scratches etc and will wear out over time and parts will be replaced et al until it is replaced. Still I do try to keep it in good serviceable condition as I do my bench.
the thing being made on the bench is whats important not the bench itself. When i went to the Louvre, of the half hour I spent looking at the Mona Lisa about 30 seconds of that was at the frame.

 

[sunnybob]

If he saw my bench he'd have a coronary and die on the spot.
Mine is built from a salvaged metal 1" square tube frame about 2.5 metres long x normal bench height and depth. The 52 1/2 vice is bolted onto a plate welded to the frame.
The top was flooring grade chipboard, but on top of that I've laid 22mm T&G soft wood timbers that are all over the place as far as level is concerned.
I'm messy with paint and glue, and when the surface gets too gunged up i use a power planer to take all the rubbish off, then just paint it with clear varnish again, not caring about the plough marks from the planer.
Marks for looks out of 10? about a minus 5.
marks for strong usability out of 10? 10.5.
Its there to support stuff, not to eat dinner off of.

 

[thetyreman]

he'd cry if he saw mine then, saw marks, dents and imperfections all over it.

 

[Tasky]

My car is a work of art compared to what I could make from scratch and cost a crap-bucket full more than the bench

Really?
My bench cost exactly £250.52 more than my car... benefits of helping out your friendly neighbourhood mechanic! :lol:

Definitely try not to abuse your bench... but don't get too precious about the occasional light catch of a saw blade or whatever.

In fact, I noticed Paul Sellers has little replaceable dovetail-wedge things immediately either side of his bench vice, where he typically saws through stuff - In his earlier videos you can see where he's repeatedly oversawn and nicked the corner of the bench, so perhaps little infill bits like this are worth considering?

 

[MikeG.]

I guess it depends. Some woodworkers seem to only make stuff for their workshop, with tool cupboards and benches like pieces of fine furniture. The rest of us consider it a tool, and it gets used, abused, and worn. The same bench on which I made £5000+ pieces of furniture for Liberty has seen me strip a Hilux engine, sharpen my chainsaw, fix the lawnmower, and do welding amongst a myriad other jobs. So long as you clean up between operations there is no difficulty with doing nice woodwork on a battered and worn bench (which, incidentally, served for 30 years as a school bench).

 

[novocaine]

strip a Hilux engine, sharpen my chainsaw, fix the lawnmower, and do welding amongst a mtriad other jobs.

only reason my bench has a piece of 3mm MDF on it (friend told me I was being precious), the MDF has been coated in a flame retardant.

 

[Tasky]

The same bench on which I made £5000+ pieces of furniture for Liberty has seen me strip a Hilux engine, sharpen my chainsaw, fix the lawnmower, and do welding amongst a myriad other jobs.

Sacred, Sacrificial, or just Showing Off? =D>

 

[Bm101]

"If you're a druid you can have the best of both worlds."
Druid Woodworkers Society pamphlet. c.792 BC

 

[MikeG.]

The same bench on which I made £5000+ pieces of furniture for Liberty has seen me strip a Hilux engine, sharpen my chainsaw, fix the lawnmower, and do welding amongst a myriad other jobs.

Sacred, Sacrificial, or just Showing Off? =D>

Nah, none of those. Reminiscing.........

 

[ED65]

Obviously there are extremes, and lots of benches in between somewhere, everyone finds their own happy medium.

We've all seen those showcase benches in mags or online, and some of them are undeniably beautiful, and as much as I can appreciate some of them aesthetically who'd want to work on one?? You'd be afraid of dinging it just from carelessly putting a tool down, much less cutting into it with an errant chisel tip.

Give me a top with a replaceable hardboard skin over a ply or MDF core, on top of legs made from inexpensive softwood any day. Costs about a zillion times less, works exactly as well if it's done right.

 

[worn thumbs]

I regard a bench as no more than an essential tool and not an opportunity to show off my woodwork skill.If I spill paint on it or put down a piece of wood on a screw thats been left there and gain a scratch or gouge,it isn't a disaster.I do have a special disdain for those who pepper their bench with drill holes because they don't realise how many chips and fragments will lodge there and they get a shock when a workpiece gains a ding in the surface as a result of being worked on.

I do wonder about some of our American counterparts and their benches.They seem to have a great affection for benches made to a very high standard of joinery and then they fit mediaeval pattern vices to the front and as tail vices too.Do we have anybody in the UK working with such a bench professionally?I know lots of people are influenced by American websites and videos and don't get me started on sawbenches with no crown guard or riving knife.Benches on American websites seem so foreign in more ways than one and part of immaculate workshops where building jigs and workshop items for a vast space seems an end in itself.

 

[memzey]

A topic I feel I can definitely contribute to - as it involves cack handedness around the bench . In January of last year I made my own and posted it as a project thread. Since then I’m glad to say that it has seen quite a bit of use, although not as much as I would have liked. Fortunately I still have the pictures of when the bench was new to compare against it’s current state. I think I’m definitively not in the sacred/precious about the top group as the following pictures demonstrate:
Before

After

Before

After

It is only made out of salvaged softwood so was always prone to the odd ding or twelve. Even so I have always treated it as an instrument that could be replaced or refreshed with a pass through the planer thicknesser when needed. The dents don’t bother me at all and I think I’d prefer not to have a top that required me to take special precautions around it. Having said that the top is still flat and true (between the gauges and dings that is) so it’s not too bad.

 

[MatthewRedStars]

Sacrifical 6 mm sheet of MDF on top of mine. When each sheet finally dies it goes to make packing crates etc.

 

[fiveeyes]

My bench..when I bought the house, had a plywood topped 'table?' measures 6'x4'. I put 19mm mdf on top :mrgreen: .Has worked for quite a few years now. To be fair, I only do woody stuff in the winter.
Good weather see's me outside! ..5..