Having now sorted out domestic arrangements I have now decided to convert part of a garage to a permanent workshop and have started making the frame for a workbench. Any ideas from the team on the best way/material to make the worktop.
Many thanks.
Malcolm Webb
There are those amongst us who went to the store and bought a solid core door. In our heads we used the thinking that this would be a good "get by" but after a couple/few years we joined the fraternity of Door Benchers.
UA100, Door Bencher since 1988...
My latest bench, completed a couple of months ago, has 1" MDF topped with 1" European birch laminated panel. It's edged with 2 x 3/4" white ash. Cost approx $100. It looks nice (to me, anyway!) and weighs a ton, which is exactly what I wanted. Actually, I haven't even fastened the top to the base properly, but it's OK to plane on, if the plane is razor sharp. As a result, I think I'll just pop some large rounded-over dowels into the base and drill holes in the MDF, so that the top remains forever easily removable...
I've been thinking about using a door -- but a hollow one. Hollow? But, wait! The reason for the hollow door versus solid is that a solid door will not stay flat -- that is, flat enough to be a good glue-up surface. Or that is my concern. A hollow door will stay flat -- in theory, as it is akin to a torsion box -- and, to keep it from being pierced, I was thinking of wrapping it with 2" thick wood and then laminating 1/2" mdf top and bottom.
So, question: Has your solid core door stayed flat enough for a good glue-up surface? My thinking is that a hollow-door will stay flatter than a solid core door.
I am also thinking of the laminated hollow-core door approach as a stable-flat base for the "Ultimate Tool Stand",
I have used hollow core doors and laminated 3/4 MDF to both sides. My current bench is 15 years old. I glued up 4x6 D Fir to make a top 33 inches wide and 7 feet long. I have a pattern makers (Emmert) vise on one end and two Wilton quick release vises on the other. Before I glued it up I cut bench dog slots (1 x 11/2) in two of the edges that line up with the Wilton bench dogs. The top was then run through a wide belt sander (both sides) which cost me $25 to have done. The bench has been resurfaced twice in 15 years and is dead flat and weighs a ton so it won't move. Total cost back then was $100. It is a beauty and gets lot's of compliments. I do use an oil base poly on top so the glue never sticks. max
My "solid core" door benchtop has stayed flat for a few years now.
Your idea of using a hollow core door, which uses a principle known as "stress skin" construction to maintain flatness, should work well providing you overcome the lighter weight issue (you generally want a heavy benchtop, which the solid core door gives you) with additional "skins", as you describe above.
Let us know how is works out.
my main bench serves duty as outfeed for the table saw and as assembly/ general purpose bench. the top is a full sheet of 3/4" MDF with a full sheet of 3/4" melamine on top of it. the frame is fairly heavy timber locally milled pine- 4x6, 4x8 and 1+"x8 rough sawn, a few years dry when I got it.
I'm thinking that one maybe didn't get baked quite long enough.
I haven't a clue. Back in the day we used to make plastic laminate tops with 1 1/2" hollow core metal substrates. I have one of those that's 3' X 5' that I use for an assembly table top. It's very flat.
I think you need to look at torsion boxes.
Again, I think you need to look at torsion boxes.
I used a solid core door with maple flooring laminated on it, hickory around the edge. Toobye and fourbye for the frame.
Pics of the process at
djb
In your post above I thought you said you indicated you used a solid-core door as a benchtop. That's why I asked.
Well, that raises the basic question as to the effective difference in this application between a torsion box and a typical hollow-core door -- especially after 1/2" or 3/4" mdf is added top and bottom. I don't have any hollow-core doors in my house to try torquing. I can surmise that 3/4" mdf as the internal grid in a torsion box could help resist torquing better than the honeycomb inside a hollow door, but maybe the mdf is overengineered for this - again, compared to a hollow-core door sandwiched between 1/2" or so mdf. -- Igor
Sorry about that. I do have the Door Bench and mostly use it to pile crap on. The assembly table is mostly where most work gets done. That and the outfeed table for the saw but I'm working on a New Year's resolution to not be doing that/leave it alone and let it be an outfeed table.
By the way, I meant to ask, why do you feel it's so important to have a "supeflat" surface for glue ups? Reason I ask is I'm pretty certain that most clamps with out do anything you put into flattening a top. This of course is not to say I'm recommending that you use the drive way for glue ups, just that I've never given it much thought/if I do I'm pretty certain I'd be right back where I am.
UA100
Hey Dave,
Nice workbench! Thanks for great pictures.
-Peter De Smidt
Ta.
As I'm on the early part of the ww learning curve, my concern is based on some reading & research. For example this article on torsion boxes:
and this one on a rollable tool bench:
There is max's post in this thread which suggests an additional confirmation of my concern. And, it makes some sense to me, especially when gluing up cabinet boxes. Anyway, my sense is that there are MANY variables when woodworking (as with many other things) and so I try to reduce the variables where I think I can. For example, doing a TS tune-up to a few thousandths of an inch, even though being off by 100th of an inch is probably OK when it comes to many TS cuts. If you are asking if I've had some experience that has taught me the need for a "superflat" top -- not yet. -- Igor
I will frequently glue up stuff on winding sticks. You lay two straight sticks (key word, straight) on your bench and glue up on top of the sticks. It doesn't matter if your top is cupped. The sticks work well. max
Tom Plamann, admired & envied by many of us, uses these. ;-)
Well, at his site he does say this: "I am a designer, woodworker who specializes in high-end projects." If his clients pay enough for him to have granite work tables, I s'pose so. (As if the photos of his work did not provide enough evidence.) More power to 'im. -- Igor
From your earlier post in this thread,
Plamann thinks a flat surface is good. Wanted you to know you weren't alone.
OTOH here are a pair of Workmates.
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