Replies

1. 
   _mj_ | Apr 23, 2021 05:13pm | #1

   I am not a "pro", just a lifelong hobbyist with 40+ years experience. It sounds like you have what you need to do the work. If you have the lumber ripped you should decide how thick you want your top to be and have the lumber cut to something over that finished thickness, then bring it into your space and sticker it for a good long time to acclimate to your shop conditions before milling it. It WILL move as it learns to live in your shop.

   If you get it milled to final size elsewhere any movement will force you to remill anyway and you'll have less than what you want in the finished top. Anyone getting paid will make rip after rip with no thought to where it is going to be used in the bench.

   The best idea (to me) would be to do the whole thing yourself if you can and just get the slabs into your shop, let them settle and start from scratch. You'll be able to choose where you take your parts from the slabs, and pick the most stable parts for the top and the less predictable areas for legs and stretchers. A bandsaw would be very helpful as you break them down.

   Those big slabs will probably be flatsawn. With some care you'll be able to turn much of it into rift and Q-sawn stock making for a more stable finished top.

1. 
   DRBWWing | Apr 24, 2021 04:43pm | #10

   _MJ_

   I love what I heard Frank Klausz said, he told the story of apprenticing under his father in Hungary, one day he marveled at his proficiency in some task and his father's reply was "after 40 years you'll be a pretty good beginner, too."

   This has helped me a lot when my OCD/Perfectionist/Self-flagellating Dr. Hyde rears his ugly head.

2. 
   esch5995 | Apr 23, 2021 05:37pm | #2

   Milling wood is not difficult and I strongly urge you to take it on. You have much more control over the final product if you do. There are numerous articles in the archives on milling. The key is patience and go slow. Bring the wood into your shop well in advance of the milling, a minimum of 2 weeks preferably with thicker lumber a month. Stack it off the floor with ½" stickers between boards to allow air to circulate around each board and forget about it for a month while you finalize plans and think about assembly steps etc.

   When the wood is thoroughly acclimated, start milling it by jointing one face flat followed by one edge. Learn to read the grain and know how to feed the wood into the machine to avoid tearout. You can do this with your eyes by looking at the side grain, or your fingers by lightly rubbing your hand over the face of the board and feeling the subtle difference in feel between rubbing with the grain or against it. Think of it like running your hand over a short-haired dog's fur in one direction the fur lays down and feels smooth in the other it raises up and feels bristly. You want to feed the wood in the direction that feels smooth or the grain on the side tapers down to the table left to right. Don't worry if you get it wrong and get tearout just flip the board end for end and try it again and see if it reduces the tearout. If not the grain could be interlocked or changing and the only thing you can do is take lighter cuts and go slowly. Once you determine the direction of the grain put an arrow on the edge of the board with chalk or a pencil pointing in the best feed direction.

   Once you have flattened one face at least 80% on the jointer switch to the planer and do the same thing putting the flattened face against the table. Keep making passes like this until you get the second face flattened upon which time you should start alternating faces until you reach a thickness about ¼-⅛" thicker than desired Final then stop and restack and sticker the wood again and forget about it for a week. While wood Rebalances it's moisture content.

   At the end of the week, check the boards for cups, bows, twist, etc. If necessary flatten any badly distorted boards on the jointer again before returning to the planer to achieve final thickness alternating faces as before. The last pass or two should be very light to insure the best possible surface and reduce tearout.

   Now your ready to start cutting your pieces and build your bench.

3. 
   muskokalayne | Apr 23, 2021 05:47pm | #3

   I built matt’s monster work bench with exactly what you have and l had a lot of fun building it . I think you can still checkout matt’s video and just follow what he does and you will be just fine ,take your time have fun and you will have a fine bench when your done.hope this helps all the best and please post pictures when your done.cheers

1. 
   killernewfie | Apr 23, 2021 11:49pm | #4

   Considering I do all milling by hand, except with my bandsaw for long rips, I'd say you're more than set up to be able to mill without too much trouble. If love to have the machines but I'd have to be willing to give up a lathe to make room and that's just not going to happen.

4. 
   rob_ss | Apr 24, 2021 02:37am | #5

   Seconding all the above comments.
   Go for it.

   Three pieces of advice:

   1. Pretty much whatever happens, it's not the end of the world if it does not go perfectly. Woodworking is hard and only gets easier with practice.

   2. That having been said, you are most likely to get a serious injury if you are rushing, tired, or doing something with which you are unfamiliar. STOP and THINK before EVERY action and you will have fewer problems.

   3. LISTEN to your planer and jointer. There is usually a right way and a wrong way to plane. Cutting with and against the grain sound quite different and it does not take long to get used to it. Taking light cuts will minimise the damage if you got the direction wrong first time.

   best of luck.

5. 
   lat_axe | Apr 24, 2021 04:05am | #6

   What the others have said - mill it yourself but take care to read up on the necessary techniques then go slowly and carefully.

   Personally I find that timber from commercial suppliers or other sources where it's likely to have been kept in conditions with greater humidity than in your shop or house (where the finished article will eventually reside) needs more than a couple of weeks or a month to become thoroughly acclimatized. If a plank moves (cups, bows or twists) after just a little coming off surfaces when jointing or planing them, then its was too soon to begin working it.

   Personally I try to keep rough planks in the wood store or even the house (both having an "inside" atmosphere) for at least 6 months before I start to work on it. As a result, I never see cup, bow or twist emerge after jointing and planing the usually rough planks because such operations release excess moisture still in the planks.

   Patience and the habit of doing delayed gratification is a necessary skill in woodworking too. :-)

   ***********

   Gluing up a workbench top is often fraught with opportunities for errors. You can use alignment aids such as a spline, biscuits or dominoes; or make up some cauls to keep the pieces aligned as you clamp them up.

   It makes life easier (but takes longer) to clamp up a large bench top in stages - several pairs of planks glued up separately, then the dried results made fair (made flat and even) glued together in larger pairs until you eventually glue up the single top.

   The top still won't be as flat as you want it so you'll also need to choose a means to finally flatten the whole thing. Using a try or jointer hand plane is quickest but does need some skill with the planing, including the arrangement of the blade and its edge. A big belt sander in a sanding frame is not quite as fast (and still needs some skill) but is quicker to learn to use.

   Lataxe

6. 
   roy.unit8c | Apr 24, 2021 09:00am | #7

   I agree with the comments above. I started with and still have few power tools. I set lower expectations for a bench and built simple with the hopes of making a better bench later. I've been using this simple bench now for years along with a bench top bench for making dovetails. I used sweet gum which has interlocking grain. I made mistakes but still was able to flatten the top with hand planes and use the bench. I will still build a better one when I have tools and a shop available. A picture is attached.

   
7. 
   user-7814139 | Apr 24, 2021 09:42am | #8

   Great advice all-TY so much. The sawmill also has hard maple and red oak in rough widths. The sawmill owner said he does not know the source of beech so could be European but probably American(twisty?). If I were to take on milling, any thoughts on any of these wood choices. Leaning towards maple.

1. 
   esch5995 | Apr 24, 2021 10:35am | #9

   Hard Maple or Beech make excellent tops, but nothing wrong with making the legs and base out of less expensive red oak. Red Oak is generally easy to work with and can teach a lot about reading grain which is usually easy to do in oak and prepare you for the sometimes trickier maple.

   PS. If you do choose the Beech an acclimation period of at least a month is critical. Beech is a great wood for a bench but it will move with humidity changes more than the other choices so getting it stabilized to your shop environment before milling is very important.

8. 
   gulfstar | Apr 24, 2021 05:36pm | #11

   European birch that we get here is as straight as an arrow, it is rough lumber dimension but has a rough sanded finish to 40 grit or coarser, easy to work and stays straight after ripping or planing to thinner thickness. If you have the choice, I prefer hard maple, my maple bench has 42 years of abuse and nothing seems to alter it, a pass with a belt sander removes 10 years wort of stain, grease and glue.

9. 
   user7596380 | Apr 24, 2021 08:00pm | #12

   While we're never too old to learn [just hard of admitting it, sometimes] I agree with everything I've read posted here as advice, explanation and encouragement. If the slabs for your benchtop boards are flat sawn [most likely] you still have time to decide if you want your benchtop to expand and contract across its width [flat sawn] or in its thickness [quarter sawn]. Since you don't mention the finished thickness of your bench top, I'll pick a number - 2½". If you have all the boards ripped to say 2¾" or so by whatever the thickness of the slabs will allow, you'll have plenty of material to joint straight along the edge of each board after flattening one face, then mill and thickness them. Once they're flat and true, you can then glue them up either face to face (on edge) to get a top that's essentially quarter sawn and will be more stable as shop humidity changes seasonally, or you can still join them edge to edge, having a flat sawn top that moves across its width summer to winter that you have to build in more allowance for. Now, before the wood is milled is the best time to decide, based on the material as it is and how much extra the sawyer will charge if you have them rift and/or quarter saw it for you. Turning flat sawn benchtop boards into quarter sawn ones is both less expensive and not a big deal, just a longer process in gluing them up, flattening them and so forth. When you finish you'll be able to answer Jimi Hendrix' question, "Are you experienced?", with a resounding "Yes!".