Build a Shaker Work Bench

Assemble the Bench Top

The bench's top is built of 8/4 hard maple. Maple boards for the top were passed over the jointer to flat face one wide face of each board. The stock was then thickness planed to a thickness of 1-3/4 inches. When planning the bench I was going to thickness the boards for the top down to 1-1/2 inch. The maple I purchased was much flatter and less twisty than many boards. I ended up having to joint and thickness the stock less than I expected. When all the boards cleaned up at 1-3/4 inches in thickness, I decided to leave well-enough alone and go with a thicker top. Bench tops should always be as thick as possible, why cut away material if I did not need too to flatten the boards? The boards for the top were then jointed, cut to width and glued up to form a top 26-1/4 inches wide. The boards were left a little longer than needed at glue up. Then trimmed square to a length of 76-1/2 inches. To the top were added two 1-3/4 inch thick end-caps, and a 3-3/4 inch by 3-3/4 inch square laminated fixed jaw incorporating square holes for traditional dogs. These increased the size of the top to 30 inches by 80 inches. A traditional tail-vise was mounted on the right front corner of the top.