Stone bench for woodworking

[Frank McGuire]

I'm thinking of making a bench for woodworking using concrete blocks for the supports (legs) with a stout timber frame on top. Any comments / advice!

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Shouldn't you be asking Fred Flintsone?

[Frank McGuire]

[Andy Dingley]

Sounds like more trouble to make than doing it all in timber. How are you goint to attach the top to the uprights? You need to have a very strong and rigid joint here - I'd expect something involving long bolts down into the lower blocks might do it, but that's a lot of metal bits and pieces to be making.

[Staffbull]

I wouldnt do any heavy hammering on top or it'll come loose regardless of how you fix the top. the "legs" (blocks) will have no give but the top will, recepie for disaster

[normanwisdom]

Sounds like a crap idea.

cheers Norman

[Richard Downing]

I thought 'what a good idea...' until I read the other replies. Now, on reflection, I don't think it's much use.

The problem is that the bench support has to transmit the loads, shock loads in this case are the problem, into the floor. Wood will flex just enough to convert the shock load into a short spread of load - in short it's an very short term energy store. Concrete just doesn't do that so well, and the weak points will be the mortar joins and the places the wooden top to meets the blocks. The only way round it is to put some other energy store into the system, rubber blocks and steel wires in tension might help, but the wood is easier.

R.

[Guy King]

The message from Richard Downing contains these words:

I suppose you could always have stub-legs into sand-filled concrete piers. It's all getting a bit complex, isn't it!