I'm about to finally get started on building my workbench. The top will be 2 1/2 or 3" thick, made by laminating (face to face) maple strips. I am milling the strips from 4/4 and 8/4 plain sawn hard maple. I was going to face joint each strip before thickness planing, but am wondering if it is a waste of time (and wood) doing it on every strip. Seems like just thickness planing would be enough for the interior strips (especially the 4/4), since the top will be laminated.
Now I'm thinking about face jointing just the 8/4 before thickness planing and only thickness planing the 4/4. Of course I would make sure the boards are pretty straight to begin with. I would also pick the adjacent boards so that they would not bow in the same direction. Seems like after everything is glued up, bowing in the interior boards should be eliminated.
Any thoughts?
-jj