Oak stair treads for workbench top?

[rjdankert]

Hi, I am fairly new to woodworking. I will be building a workbench this winter. I have red oak stair treads left over from a remodeling project. They are approx. 1"x11"x35". They are not solid boards, but edge glued. The front edges are rounded over. They are coated with a urethane finish. The top will be approx. 35"x80". Is it worth using them for the bench top? If so:

- should I use an underlayment (plywood, MDF,..)?

- how would I attach them? I ask this because I don't know if there will be expansion and contraction issues.

- what does urethane do to blades?

Some of the tools I have availabe are: tablesaw, drill press, joiner, jointer, planer.

This is my first post here. Have been reading for awhile and have found some great information. Any comments appreciated, thanks in advance.

Bob

[0_Qed]

...snip...

So Pine 'PT' is 'some' hard , not prone to wear & dents.

Me? Osage Orange( aka Ugly Fruit), if you can find it ... even rough green. Dont even "try" to surface it ... no. If '5Qtr', plenty thick enuf to drill/tap for 1/4-20 from the bottom. ... No 'steel' bits left showing on the top. Almost nail-gun proof.

Stair_tread seems a mis_use, and a bit 'soft'.

Qed.

[Mike O.]

There may be other uses but I don't see why you couldn't use them for your bench. Would you put them together so that the grain runs across the bench and not long ways? If so, just rip the bull nose off and glue them up. Use biscuits if you need help lining them up. If you want to go long ways, I'm not sure how you would join them at the ends.

You could but I would not glue the top down because you would have different movement between the sheet goods and the solid treads. I would probably build the frame with stringers every so often and corner pieces at each corner. Drill the stringers and corner pieces with oversize holes or slots then attach the top with screws. This should allow movement of the top. If you wanted the sheet goods for more support, you could put oversize holes through that.

I wouldn't worry about it. If you are going to use the treads for anything you will have to deal with that anyway. You may dull blades more quickly but I wouldn't expect it to hurt anything too much. You may need to clean poly off the tools afterward.

Mike O.