So before I get ahead of myself with big and complicated projects I want to go through my current workbench and how I built it. Most people starting woodworking will first research and invest in tools, but a work surface is often the next thing on their mind. I’ve shown my very first workbench, but this is a proper bench meant to last.
This workbench is intended to be built with home center construction lumber. You can opt for hardwood lumber if you like, but in my mind, it’s a waste of money. I like my workbenches to be made of softwood so if I drop a project piece, it dents the workbench, not my project. Keep in mind that softwood can be a little tough to work with because it likes to compress when under tool pressure so be sure your tools are razor sharp and keep them that way for the duration of the build. Also, it’s important to have a simple platform to work on. If you made a simple workbench like I did, you can use that. Or, you can always just use a pair of sawhorses which is what I ultimately did. Sawhorses are always good to have in the shop anyway so don’t hesitate to purchase or make a pair.
The first step in this project is to laminate the workbench top. A lot of laminated workbenches you might find online will use 2×4 lumber. I started this way, but quickly realized that it’s difficult to find nice, straight, clean 2×4’s. Instead, I chose to go with 2×3 lumber. In my local home center, this lumber wasn’t popular so there was always a nice pile to pick through and I was able to find many really straight, defect free pieces.
The next step is to prepare all boards for lamination. My workbench is designed to be 5 feet long so I decided to first cut all boards to about 5 1/2 feet. Once, the boards were cut, it was time to lay out all the pieces and decide what my layout would be. This gave me a chance to orient the pieces in such a way to have a nice, clean top. Also, it’s worth noting that grain orientation is important as I wanted all grain to rise in the same direction. This was necessary so that when it came time to plane the top, I knew which direction I could plane with little fear of tearout.
With all boards laid out, I marked a large triangle across the surface to identify face and orientation. I put all boards aside and grabbed one at a time. I clamped it down to my sawhorses and planed both sides. These are the sides that will be laminated so they need to be fairly clean and flat. This is a process and could take awhile so don’t rush it and take your time.
The next step is to glue and laminate all pieces together. In my case, I was doing this inside so I laid down some brown paper to catch glue drips. Apply the glue liberally, but don’t overdo it. I glued all pieces in one step and then assembled them in a second step. I made sure to use almost every clamp I had to get even clamping pressure. I checked the surface to be sure there were no gaps and wiped away some of the excess glue. I left this clamped for 24 hours to be safe.
Final step is to flatten the top. This ended up taking me a couple hours across two nights because some of the pieces shifted and other pieces were uneven width. I used a toothing blade in my jack plane to tear off material quickly, but soon realized that it ended up tearing out quite a bit. I ended up using the smoothing plane with a large set to just take down the top as quick as I could. The jack plane was used again to get it flat and straight. Note, this wasn’t a final flattening because that would happen after the workbench was complete. The bottom should be flat and twist free, but it doesn’t need to be perfect, it’ll never be seen. With the top done, it could now be used as a work surface from that point on and there was plenty of work left.
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