There’s no shortage of woodmanship on here so I’m looking for some advice. I had some pallets which have been dismantled and are waiting to be turned into a workbench now. I have 6 solid posts for the legs and a lot of slats which are about 3cm x 10pm x 70cm. I want to glue and press these face-to-face under pressure and then plane their sides into a smooth surface. Has anyone done this? How much pressure am I going to need? I’m thinking it’ll need some serious weight but I have no specialist equipment so guess I’m maybe onto a hiding by even starting this. Otherwise, how best to make a solid worktop?

A thick old door, or some cheap worktop from one of the sheds might be best for a worktop. It reads like you’ll have a 10cm thick worktop assembled from planks. That’s going to be quite a weight to move around, and a big job to smooth. You’ll need to check the wood for metal debris.

Use one as a jig and drill two holes through your planks, length of studding bar, nuts and big washers?

I have a pair of sash cramps where you use your own pieces of wood for the backbone, right now they reach to about 4ft, but could be made longer.

How big and how strong does the bench need to be? Old worktops from kitchen refits are good, but if you have access to pallets already, use the posts you were going to use as legs, drill through with an auger bit and use glue, threaded bar, nuts and washers to keep it all nice and tight.

These things, but they’re £20 each…

http://www.axminster.co.uk/record-m130-cramp-heads

We made this simple bench in my brother’s shed using 4×4 posts, a couple of off cuts of 4×2 and three scaffold planks.

We nailed the vertical posts to the joists before laying the floor, the cross pieces were nailed to the door, window and wall posts. It’s a super robust bench.

As above watch for nails when planing, threaded rod is probably the easiest cheapest clamp.

Make your own parallel cramps

a chunkier version of something like this

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSwlM7cf6mo[/video]

Normally if you were glue strips together you’d want the faces you were gluing to be planed smooth otherwise its only the lumps and bumps on each face that would be glued together and most of your joint would be full of air.

But if you use polyurethane wood glue (gorilla glue or joiners mate) it foams and fills any gaps so its better for gluing rougher surfaces. You need to be fast though and the foaming can push everything apart before you’ve got it clamped up.

It can get messy too. Top tip – if you get polyurethane on your skin wash it off with WD40 fast before it sets otherwise you’ve pretty much got a glue tattoo for next week or so.

Thanks for replies. Sounding like no easy way as expected, will look for old worktops I think.

Glue your stuff together – will make a nice strong base for not so much cash using the paralell clamps thing then top with laminate flooring (cheap damaged stock from bnq – got 4.4 sqm for my benches for 8 quid or something silly.

Stupidly tough.and easy to clean.

You could also build up your slats in two or three layers, glued and screwed, would be plenty strong, look what pallets hold all the time.

Aye but their thin section only good for static loads midlife crisis.

Anyone thats dropped something even slightly heavy onto a pallet by accident knows they aint too strong for dynamic loads.

Thats laminate flooring over 18mm ply on 3×2 cls.frame stronger than the 35 mm chipboard laminate work top that was there before that the vice ripped through

That pillar drill weighs more than your car gearbox. Bench doesnt even notice it !

Bench doesnt even notice it

Brilliant.

Hmm, yeah laminate flooring it it a good idea. And I do like those clamps now I’ve watched the video.