Workbenches

Hey walnut, it depends on what your use for the bench will be. a bench for just general working and laying stuff on it untill you get around to using the stuff. or a bench for pounding, sawing,carving and planing. the first bench i mentioned, pine wood be ok; but the second senario, i would not…unless the pine is 2 1/2 to 4 inches thick. in my ever so humble opinion.

Go out and get yourself a 36” solid core door blank. Use your pine to wrap the door edge, build the legs, add a shelf or drawers or whatever you need. You can be up and running in short order. We have 2 benches like that, one we keep a MDF sacrificial cover on for sawing, sanding, routing, and such. The other has a roll of paper mounted under one end so we can roll it out and cover the bench for finishing and other dirty work.

Les

-- Stay busy....Stay young

I have 2 pine benches in my shop. One is made from rough sawn 2×12’s and one from pine 2×4’s making it 4” think. Although neither is my primary workbench, they both perform admirably. As doordude said, it really depends on what your looking to do. If woodworking is a hobby, and your doing it now and then, a “good” pine workbench will outlast you.

The other option, build it out of pine, and if you find you don’t like its durability, add a piece of maple or other hardwood ply to the top. My bet is you never add anything and the pine will work just fine.

-- http://timetestedtools.net - Collecting is an investment in the past, and the future.

My main workbench is made from yellow pine with a double layer of 3/4” plywood for the top. For my new shop I built 3 temporary workbenches from Fir and OSB. I can do just about what I want on the temporary benches excluding heavy pounding.

-- I don't make mistakes, I have great learning lessons, Greg

Thanks for the input. Hopefully i can get started on them before to long!

-- Josh- What you put in determines what you get out.