Building a workbench out of softwood?

[thetyreman]

do not bother with either wickes OR B&Q both are terrible compared to a timber yard, not seen a single usable piece of wood in either of them

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Don't forget a point that someone made on a previous thread - benches in the distant past were made for manhandling much larger sections of timber than are are worked by hand today (and people tended to be shorter), so needed to be both heavier and lower than are strictly necessary today, nice as it is to have something solid. Just a thought if you copy an ancient design.

 

[Biliphuster]

Going with consensus, softwood is fine. What matters is solid joinery and not the species of wood.

Built mine out of softwood and it's holding up well.

You will want a planing stop if you are processing stock entirely by plane. I nailed mine down and have not regretted it.

 

[novocaine]

Wickes is cheaper for CLS.

it is, but it's also in the middle of town and never has what I need (when I rarely go to be honest). the B&Q is nearer (less petrol) and easier to get to, the time saved is worth the 3p more. I also tend to be buy 20-30 sticks at a time, which puts it at timber yard prices, be selective and it's more than good enough (cls that is), most likely because they run though 2-3 pallets a week of the stuff, so it isn't sat around getting damp and it isn't stacked badly so it doesn't get bowed like a bowie thing, unlike the rest of their timber. strangely it's also the only stick that's stored inside at our B&Q.

 

[El Barto]

I finished up my bench a few weeks ago using PAR and CLS. The CLS was a mistake tbh, should have gone with PAR throughout but live and learn.

I looked at both B&Q and independent timber merchants. The latter was far cheaper, the wood was better quality and they cut it to size.

 

[MarkDennehy]

Built mine entirely from softwood. The only two regrets I have over the material chosen are that (1) I used white deal instead of red deal because I didn't know where I could get red deal at the time (I've since found a source for 6x4 red deal that I'd use if I was doing it today); and (2) I used CLS instead of PAR to save a few euros and wound up spending waaaaaaay too much time planing just to get to where I could glue up.

I'd change both of those things if I was doing it over. But having said that, it's been a joy to work on ever since I got it into the shed. Just light years beyond anything I've had to work on before now.

 

[Jacob]

Softwood OK no doubt.
But having said that there is a lot to be said for spending more dosh and buying a big bit of beech, something like 10 x 3", for the "beam" i.e. the front member of the trad bench where all the work is done. Basically for more dead weight and less bounce.

 

[PennineRider]

Ha ha now I'm completely tortured over wood choice!

A few people have said to use PAR/PSE, but this is at least twice as expensive as "rough" sawn wood, whereas the sawn square-edged timber from both B&Q & Wickes get consistently good reviews for straightness, and can be had for around £2.60 per metre.

Someone above recommended James Chambers timber merchants. I used them once for some skirting board. I found them surly and unhelpful, and discovered afterwards that B&Q would have been cheaper for what I wanted.

 

[MarkDennehy]

Oh, to have the space for a 10' bench and room to move around it
I mean, I'd have to cut holes in both end walls of my shed for a bench like that


Pennine, you have to ask how much is your time worth? Because you will spend a good few hours taking all that CLS down to being PAR level before glue-up unless you're buying great big 9x3 chunks of the stuff and doing a planked top sort of arrangement instead of a laminated top; so you might well wind up effectively spending more on the CLS than the PAR, which is the mistake I made.

 

[PennineRider]

Because you will spend a good few hours taking all that CLS down to being PAR level

I'm a noob - talk me through it. As long as the wood is straight, surely I can just glue it up? Then plane the top so it's nice and smooth and flat? What am I missing?

 

[novocaine]

I gave CLS a quick pass with a plane to clean the mating faces then glued up. once glued I scrubbed the top flat (3mm removed from one side) then used that to make the legs on, set the top on the legs then final flattening, at most 1mm removed as it was built flat in the first place. I really don't think I spent more than a couple of hours on the top and I enjoyed it, it was good practice for hand tooling and setting up planes to do different takes (skew for quick removal, flat for final finish etc.). I got it at a good price (believe it was on offer to trade, which I am) so paid something like 2 quid a stick. the top was something like 12 sticks, 5, 3, 4 !!!!!---!!!, at 24 quid for the top that was cheap enough for me. legs are laminated, 4 lengths there then stretchers and rails were another 4 lengths so 20 in total, 40-50quid for a bench of that size that is rock solid. obviously B&Q is more expensive now (and I have to retract my comment about wickes at this point) and wickes is cheaper at 2.15 a length (if you buy 5 or more).



it doesn't rack, it's pretty heavy (although I have more weight on it as I store tools on the bottom rails) it's massive (I don't use a third of it as it's blocked by the pillar drill stand at present)and best of all, it's cheap so it doesn't matter to much how it gets treated.

 

[El Barto]

Because you will spend a good few hours taking all that CLS down to being PAR level

I'm a noob - talk me through it. As long as the wood is straight, surely I can just glue it up? Then plane the top so it's nice and smooth and flat? What am I missing?

The edges aren't square, they're rounded/chamfered. You look at it and think ah that's not too bad to plane out but then once you glue it all up you very quickly realise that there is a LOT of planing to do. This is the mistake I made. CLS is also really nasty to work with. It planes horribly and is just eurgh. When I switched to PAR there was a noticeable difference in working with it.

It CAN be done for sure, but it's a hell of a lot of work, and as a beginner a bench build is already hard work to start with!

 

[monkeybiter]

My bench is an old reclaimed lump that I have chopped about on several occasions when rejigging my workshop. The top was all over the place and I flattened it with a router in angle iron tracks, but the top that I actually use is a sacrificial layer of 18mm ply with a 2x2 softwood edge all round to hold it in place. It's nice an flat and smooth and I can screw and pin into it knowing that it will be easy to replace as and when I need to. Just a thought.

 

[MusicMan]

I used a timber yard for two 12x3 slabs of beech for the top, and had no trouble getting them to run it through their big planer/thicknesser for me.

 

[MarkDennehy]

What am I missing?

That it won't be straight, won't have a smooth face, won't give a solid glue joint and the top wouldn't hold together beyond the first few belts of a hammer. CLS over here is rough-sawn, with fur on the faces and edges and splinters on the arises. You'd have to take that off at least, and when you were done you'd find that you had bowing, cupping and twist in various quantities. You'd wind up glueing the mess on one face to the mess on the other in the few patches that touched one another and one good hammer belt might get the mess on the face to shear off and leave the wood and glue joint separated.

(And I'm a total noob as well btw)

 

[MarkDennehy]

The edges aren't square, they're rounded/chamfered.

Even over on this side of the Atlantic? Hm. I guess RWD and CLS aren't synonyms then, so discard what I was thinking

 

[woodbrains]

As an aside,has anybody in Britain ever worked on the type of bench the American hobbyists seem to worship?You must have seen pictures of them-all wood vices and even a wooden tail vice,rather than the quick release Record most of us use over here.

Hello,

Do you mean like mine?

This is one of two I made! I made a U shaped tail vice on this one, so I can clamp panels across the full width without a portion being over a void. I think this is original, I've never seen it before at any rate.

The vice screws are steel, but vices are wood. The other has an L shaped tail vice and a massive underframe.

Mike.

 

[mugginsNO1]

That's an impressive bench Woodbrains......nice work sir!

I made my bench from 25mm exterior ply and chunky section softwood for the legs and rails. It's solid and stable and didn't take too long to make. Probably less than £50 (Had a few offcuts laying around).

 

[woodbrains]

That's an impressive bench Woodbrains......nice work sir!

I made my bench from 25mm exterior ply and chunky section softwood for the legs and rails. It's solid and stable and didn't take too long to make. Probably less than £50 (Had a few offcuts laying around).

Hello,

Just like my first one, softwood underframe and plywood top, cross braces on the back. Sturdy, simple and cheap. Should last as long as a reasonable person should want. But my vices were a little weak, so I built my first 7 footer, beech topped one about 17 years ago. I priced up strong 2 Record vices and thought, 2 vice screws and all the hardwood I need could be bought for that, so I built it for the price if 2 record vices! It has been a great bench.

The one in the picture, I built about 18 months ago for my shed, as the other went to the school workshop where I work. I had the idea of a full width tail vice, so went ahead with what was an experiment really. It seems to work, though. I like clamping across the full width panels and can plane them transversely as well as longitudinally as the clamp is much firmer than a single bench dog. Designing the vice to accommodate the seasonal movement of the wide bench top was fun. The base was something I had already made for a kitchen project that didn't materialise, so it was just waiting for a top.

Mike.

 

[PennineRider]

OK well it sounds like a minefield so I'm not going to bother.

Thanks all