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Bench top question (infosec.pub)

submitted 2 days ago by sneekee_snek_17@lemmy.world to c/woodworking@lemmy.ca

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I'm taking an ash tree down on my property next week and I'm gonna build a work bench with it. I want it to be a hefty boy, so I'm going the roubo route.

Question is, since I can ask the mill for specific cuts, is there any reason I shouldn't just get one monstrous 6" slab from the middle of the trunk and use it?

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[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I can think of a few reasons not to use a single 6" slab from the middle of the tree.

Drying a slab that thick has got to be a pain. A sawmill can almost certainly cut that, but are you having it kiln dried? Can the kiln dry it?
Transporting such a thing is going to be a nightmare. How are you planning to haul it home?
You probably don't want the pith in the middle of the tree. The weak center in the middle of the bullseye. There's a chance it's going to be rotten, and even if it isn't it's almost certain to be a bit weak.
How stable is a sold slab compared to several segments glued up? Get some quarter sawn 8/4 or even 12/4 and glue up the bench from those. It should stay flat forever.

[–] sneekee_snek_17@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I don't know the moisture content, it's already mostly dead, just standing.
it's ten feet from my house, logs will be stacked and milled in the driveway after the crane takes them out of the backyard
fair point about the pith, that was kind of what I was getting at with the question, so thanks
of course you're right, for the same reason plywood is so dimensionally stable. BUT, theres a few other factors I'm considering

First, cool factor. I just kinda like the idea of just a few massive hunks of wood stuck together into a table. Appeals to the caveman brain

Second, actually practical, laminating the top basically quadruples the surface area id have to get square and true, and since I'm likely doing this all by hand, that's like two months of work right there, I've got a one year-old bumbling around here

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think it's a good bet that if the wood is in usable condition, it probably needs to be dried. Kiln drying takes months, air drying takes years. You're not going to cut the tree down, saw it into planks or slabs, and then make something out of it that week.

If it's not leaving your property, we'll assume air drying. Rule of thumb is 1 year in the barn for every inch of thickness, so if you want a 6 inch slab, expect to let it dry for 6 years. That's a rule of thumb, I have no experience or study air drying lumber of that size. You're off the edge of my map.

I don't know how much a slab of that size will warp as it dries, especially with the pith in it.

I'll grant you, cutting it up and re-gluing it does add a WHOLE lot of jointing. Building a slab top workbench is a lot of work with hand tools no matter what you do.

You might have to rip a few inches out of the middle of the slab to remove the pith anyway (and you'd wind up with a couple quarter sawn boards doing that).

Mind you, a 6 inch slab is pretty thick for a woodworker's bench. 4 or even 3 inches would be more typical. I've seen workbenches made of laminated 2x4s that wound up 3 inches thick that take holdfasts just fine.

Keep us up to speed, let us know what you find once you've got the tree knocked down.

[–] sneekee_snek_17@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

All very reasonable points, and while I'm aware it's very unlikely I can just dive into work, I kinda wanna anyway. Say it's like 30% and I make the table, so i have to plane it periodically to reflatten? I don't see that as a big deal

On the other hand, if it is genuinely green, a 24"×6"×96" slab would be like 500lbs, which is a little over what I think i can safely maneuver by myself.