Thread: When to flatten a bench after a move

I would leave it to settle a few seasons unless it is really so far out to be unusable for your work. Check it with winding sticks and strait edge and see how it changes over winter and through summer. After that you should have an idea of what needs to be done. I did reflatten my bench 2 years after building as a couple of humps about 1mm had developed. While I planed them off it got me thinking of how often I should do this and how soon would a bloke plane his whole bench top away. I have not checked for flat for over a year now.
Regards
John

Luke

I think you should give the bench about 3 months in its new home before you set about flattening it.
Then, you should be prepared to flatten it again at least once or twice a year till you know it's stopped moving.

BUT
this means that what you can do on the bench will be limited for the first few mounts.
Which in tiurn means you might want to build a quick and cheap knock down bench.

Luke

I generally agree with Ian, but I would take a slightly different approach.

1. When you get the bench again and it is situated where it is likely to live for a while, check it for flatness and if it is out by more than 1mm anywhere, remove the relevant humps so it is 'generally' flat.
2. Check every 3 months thereafter and redo to 'generally' flat by removing any large humps.
3. After 4 seasons (5 'flattenings') you can safely flatten the whole bench to 'smooth'.
4. Check once a year thereafter and do 'hump removal' for the first 3 years and 'smoothing' in the fourth year.
5. Alternatively - don't sweat it and only think about flattening the bench if your work is coming out squirrelly. Then flatten it as much as you can be bothered until the issue comes out again!

Originally Posted by jmk89

Alternatively - don't sweat it and only think about flattening the bench if your work is coming out squirrelly. Then flatten it as much as you can be bothered until the issue comes out again!

This is my standard approach I suppose. It has not been a problem in the past, and I don't really expect it to be one in the future, but it's just something I know can be somewhat improved upon.

In all honesty, if I have time to do it between projects in the first three months I would be surprised, so that's likely not going to happen, and by the time I get that round tuit it'll probably be well and truly settled from the move. I was just curious if anyone was going to say to wait a couple of years or something out of left field that I had not considered.

Cheers, fellas!

Luke

Luke
the most important consideration is that your bench is flat enough for the project you're currently working on.

The tricky part is defining "flat enough"
if your using your bench to support a plane whilst you shoot a miter for a smallish box, then the section the plane in riding on and the bit the stock is sitting on need to be in the same plane -- but that plane doesn't need to be coincident with the rest of the bench.

but if your truing up a cabinet door or face frame, or the legs for a table or chair, then the surface the frame / table / chair is sitting on needs to be in the same plane.

It's really a matter of scale -- if you're flattening a panel and the panel can deflect into dips in the bench, then the result won't be flat -- but conversely depending on what the panel is for, absolute flatness may not matter anyway.

Luke, I reckon those advising you to re-surface your bench multiple times have not had the pleasure of hand-planing E. tereticornis! I doubt any movement will be significant enough to stop you working on it as soon as you can get it out of that container & re-assembled. I wouldn't try to predict where the top will end up in its new home, but I suspect it won't do anything very radical, but it will probably take a couple of moisture cycles to be sure.

I guess I'm not one who thinks a bench has to be straight & level to plus or minus fractions of a thou. It's a holding device more than a reference surface, imo, the table-saw bench is for when you need a very flat, large surface. I like a bench to be reasonably straight, particularly along the front, otherwise it's rather difficult to straighten anything other than short, thick boards on it, but level to within a half mm or so is plenty good enough for holding anything I've ever worked on. Even if there's a dip or two in your bench surface, you are not going to get any significant deflection when planing most furniture parts held between dogs. If you work on very thin pieces, maybe you need to be more fussy.

My bench is Rock Maple, which is not classed as a particularly stable wood, and it was also a little wetter than I thought when I made it (in Ontario, Canada). Four or five years after it was made it was shifted to a very dry climate (country Victoria) for several years, then Brisbane for the last 20-something years. All very different climates, but there has been minimal change associated with the translocations. The most significant movement was a bit of twist caused by sitting on an uneven floor, but that soon settled out once it was put on a flatter surface.

I reckon you've got too much time on your hands to worry & fret - the sooner that bench arrives & you can go to work on it, the better!

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

- the sooner that bench arrives & you can go to work on it, the better!

And go to work I shall.

I feel like, in a best case scenario, I would be ready to do this after three or four months, so I'll definitely be building furniture in the meantime (this mattress on the floor nonsense has to end...). Maybe after one year I'll do it. Maybe two...

But in two years it may well be time to move again, so who knows...

Cheers,
Luke

Originally Posted by Luke Maddux

......I feel like, in a best case scenario, I would be ready to do this after three or four months, so I'll definitely be building furniture in the meantime (this mattress on the floor nonsense has to end...). Maybe after one year I'll do it. Maybe two...

But in two years it may well be time to move again, so who knows...

Now you're talkin' great sense......