OMG! I see workbenches on YouTube with maple, Purple Heart, walnut accents etc.
Then I see all the round dog holes, the Veritas hardware and hold downs etc.
may the end of the day it’s is a workbench. Maple in the USA is still relatively cheap. Red oak and birch are firewood in the east.
Our Doug Fir is fourth or fifth generation crap!!! Reclaimed first gen is serious money… more expensive than maple or birch.
Poplar is about 2/3 cost of maple. Clear pine has shot up in price. I can’t believe what clear pine costs. I am now using maple where I once used clear surgar pine for patterns.
in Europe and England, beech is common. It’s a nice general purpose hardwood. In the USA it’s almost impossible to find.
Thanks to China, American ash is going to be impossible. The Chinese ash borer has spread like wild fire. Came in on un-fumed shipping pallets around Lake Erie.
while you can use fence posts, I would be careful. Boards with center are very unstable and prone to cracks and twist. Timber framers often spec timber as FOHC or free of heart center.
For me, I like vintage woodworking. So a functional bench that is comfortable to use that also exhibits some roughness has a certain character to it. English bench designs are traditionally of some sort of pine. Roubo benches are often oak.
while I understand the notions of Roubo, how heavy a bench do you need? A slab of chip board on two saw horses may be perfect. I prefer maple as it’s easier to get and it’s close grained making it viable for doing machine work. Oak absorbs cutting oil and solvents.
my wood bench is half shaker and half roubo. I have a 1940s Emmett vise and a standard tail vise. The roubo side is oak and the shaker side is maple. The maple was reclaimed from a bowling alley and the oak was some heavy timber’s from work that was being thrown out from an old job.
I think that it’s really cool when the stuff in your shop has a story to tell. My planer came out of a catholic high school. My tennoner came out of a prison shop so I kept the department of corrections tag. To me it’s boring when everything is store bought ikea like chip board with Chinese tools.
