Shopsmith Forums

It's almost time to build myself a proper woodworking bench. So I bought Chris Schwartz' book on workbenches, and it is answering a lot of my questions. When it comes to the type of wood, Chris says that you can use pretty much anything that is stiff, dense, and inexpensive. Hard is also good.

Ash wood fits that description perfectly – it’s commonly used to make wooden baseball bats. It’s similar to red oak, and some woodworkers prefer it over red oak.

Here in Central Ohio, feasting ground of the emerald ash borer, ash is plentiful and really cheap right now. You can find rough-cut dried ash on Craigslist for around $1/BF most anytime. And at the moment, I can buy a pile of 4/4 ash for about $0.25/BF.

Of course, 4/4 lumber would require a lot of laminating. Rather than doing it butcher-block style, I’m considering laminating the 4/4 boards into thicker ones – maybe plane them down to ¾”, and glue up four of them to get a 3” thick board. Then joint those boards and glue them up edge-wise to make the benchtop. That way, the top surface would show wide boards with few laminations, and it should be easier to glue up nice and flat.

But then I got to wondering if it would make sense to "cross-laminate" the boards. By that, I mean glue the benchtop up in ¾” thick layers, laminating the layers so that the grain direction changes by 90 degrees between each layer. In effect, the benchtop would be a massive hunk of plywood.

So I Googled “cross-laminated timber” to see if there is a precedent for this. It turns out that there is. In Europe, cross-laminated wooden panels are being used, instead of concrete and steel, to make some pretty large buildings. A few companies are trying to introduce the material into the North American market.

Contemplating humidity-driven expansion/contraction effects, I can imagine two possible outcomes:
1) The cross-laminations restrain across-the-grain expansion of the adjacent layers, resulting in superior dimensional stability, just like regular plywood. (I am assuming that the grain would run in the same direction on the top and bottom layers.) Or,
2) The internal stresses resulting from humidity changes cause lamination failures, and the top falls apart.

Advice, anyone?

I would say #1 is on track. Laminated wood beams and electric poles have been used for a while with great success. Very strong. I think the thing with cross grain is one part moves and the other doesn't. In this case everything is homogenious and thus should be fine.

By the way, you ready for Sat.? Go Bucks!

which one of Chris' books are you referencing? I am compiling info and benches and small shop design myself. I am interested to hear other opinions on this as well, since my bench will be subjected to texas humifity until i can climate control the new workspace

apexsunguitars wrote:which one of Chris' books are you referencing? I am compiling info and benches and small shop design myself. I am interested to hear other opinions on this as well, since my bench will be subjected to texas humifity until i can climate control the new workspace

The book title is quite a mouthful: Workbenches: From Design And Theory To Construction And Use (Popular Woodworking)

Amazon has both paper and Kindle versions.

I am a total fan of Chris Schwartz's 2 books on work benches - very pragmatic and quite far ranging. I think (always a danger) that his 'guidelines' are good ones and I am presently, more or less, following them in the on-going construction of my first 'real' work bench.

Regarding the cross-laminating idea - I think it is an excellent idea. My bench is using three layer's of 3/4" plywood and goodness knows you are just considering a type of plywood. Heavy, stable - what is not to like. With layers, you can also put in cutouts, etc to accomodate special features - e.g. on mine I cut the bottom layer 1/2" shorter (in width) so it provides a 'slot' for a deadman. I also provided cutouts in all three layers for insetting a vise face.

The only problem that you might have is in flattening the top. More or less impossible with my plywood top. Don't know how wide your lumber is going to be but if you can get them 3" or so wide then you could joint and plane to flat (and untwisted) and then laminate them face-to-face for a dynamite top. Then you can flatten the top after construction. Interesting note: you wouldn't really care what the thickness is!

You would want your wood to be well dried and I think you might have to do something to make sure the ash borer is totally and completely eradicated.

You could also, with a laminated top, build in mortises for matching tendon's on the legs for a really solid connection from the top to the base. I am using two 1/2" dowels down through my top into the legs just for that reason.

Have fun!

The following is pure gut feel with a small amount of 'knowledge'.

Ever looked at a bowling alley? Narrow side up (exposed). Brunswick gotta know something.

Granted an alley is considerably longer than a work bench, but they put a lot of steel into them(I assume to prevent movement caused by swelling).

I question using thick cross plys. Plywood will warp so I assume thicker plies would introduce greater internal forces.

I would be inclined to position the pieces so that the rings are curved towards the side(or straight grain vertical). That minimizes movement across the top front to rear). That positions movement to a vertical direction. Makes selection much more of a chore during both assembly and during final planing.

I have no intention of replacing my current bench, so this is purely a mental exercise.

bobgroh wrote:I am a total fan of Chris Schwartz's 2 books on work benches - very pragmatic and quite far ranging.

Bob, do you feel that both books are worth owning and different enough in scope or is one of them the better? No disrespect OP but I imagine that this question would be relevant to you as well...not threadjacking lol!

JPG40504 wrote:The following is pure gut feel with a small amount of 'knowledge'.

Ever looked at a bowling alley? Narrow side up (exposed). Brunswick gotta know something.

Granted an alley is considerably longer than a work bench, but they put a lot of steel into them(I assume to prevent movement caused by swelling).

I question using thick cross plys. Plywood will warp so I assume thicker plies would introduce greater internal forces.

I would be inclined to position the pieces so that the rings are curved towards the side(or straight grain vertical). That minimizes movement across the top front to rear). That positions movement to a vertical direction. Makes selection much more of a chore during both assembly and during final planing.

I have no intention of replacing my current bench, so this is purely a mental exercise.

The thing about plywood warping got me thinking. Plywood has better width stability than solid wood, but I didn't even consider warpage. In my experience, plywood doesn't stay real flat unless braced. So warpage must be the "dimension" that moves due to those internal stresses.

Then I found this independent research paper, which certainly seems to confirm that theory:
http://69.89.31.187/~jamesho5/wp-conten ... ontent.pdf

So no cross-laminations for my workbench top.

Your suggestions for board and grain orientation make a lot of sense. At first, they seemed contrary to conventional wisdom, which says that quarter-sawn boards laid flat would give the best width stability. But I finally realized that a flat-sawn board is quarter-sawn when viewed from its edge. Thus flat-sawn boards laminated together on edge should give the same width stability as quarter-sawn boards laid flat. But be a whole lot cheaper. Score one for Brunswick!

BuckeyeDennis wrote:The thing about plywood warping got me thinking. Plywood has better width stability than solid wood, but I didn't even consider warpage. In my experience, plywood doesn't stay real flat unless braced. So warpage must be the "dimension" that moves due to those internal stresses.

Then I found this independent research paper, which certainly seems to confirm that theory:
http://69.89.31.187/~jamesho5/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Dimensional-Changes-in-Cross-Laminated-Timbers-due-to-Changes-in-Moisture-Content.pdf

So no cross-laminations for my workbench top.

Your suggestions for board and grain orientation make a lot of sense. At first, they seemed contrary to conventional wisdom, which says that quarter-sawn boards laid flat would give the best width stability. But I finally realized that a flat-sawn board is quarter-sawn when viewed from its edge. Thus flat-sawn boards laminated together on edge should give the same width stability as quarter-sawn boards laid flat. But be a whole lot cheaper. Score one for Brunswick!

As long as yer Q-sawn boards have the 'rings' oriented 'vertically' I agree.

apexsunguitars wrote:Bob, do you feel that both books are worth owning and different enough in scope or is one of them the better? No disrespect OP but I imagine that this question would be relevant to you as well...not threadjacking lol!

I don't actually have the first book but, as mentioned, find the second book to be just chuck full of good stuff. I believe that Mr. Schwartz himself, in one of his blogs, indicates that the 2nd book to be more comprehensive and extensive. They are different - the first one covers maybe 5 or 6 example workbenches while the 2nd one covers 10 or more example work benchs (by lots of other folks, by the way). He follows up each workbench with a critique - in some cases, written by him and in some cases by the original builder. It also covers a couple of specialized topics such as hold downs, vises, etc.

For myself, I bought it (hardcover edition) about a year ago and I have read it, piece by piece, probably 20 times. I heartily recommend the 2nd for sure - got so much stuff in it you'll be hard put to ever exhaust the material.