Thread: Joining hardwood timber for workbench top

Firstly welcome to the forum.

The main reason for using dowel when gluing the bench top together is for alignment. The joint you create will be long grain to long grain giving a very strong bond.

You are thinking along the right way to get the result. Here I go again with the "BUT" the method to join the planks would be....cut to length but over size about 20-30mm so you can cut the whole top to length and square at the same time. Lay the planks next to each other as they will be in the finish. You can bet that they will need truing up so the ere is no gaps between the planks. Thinking that clamping them up will straighten them is not what would happen. Each plank has to have its edges straight and square. You can do this with a plane or a stiff straight edge and a router. At 1100mm long I would but 12mm dowels in about 70mm from the ends and then through the middle about 200 apart. What you don't want when the top is finished is gaps between the planks that would hide your little watch making pieces. So do a good job now and be particular and the result will be something you will be proud of.
When you have glued and doweled and clamped the thing together( making sure it if flat and not twisted) Cut it to final length then start on the frame to hold it up

Like chambezio said getting your boards true and straight to start with is a must. Depending on what machinery you have, if you need help flattening your boards let me know and you can come around and run them over my jointer and thicknesser.

As above with a couple of other points, you do not need dowels with that size you could just glue, plus lay the boards out first and have a look at the end grain and you will see growth rings alternate each board so that the rings are also in alternate directios this will help keep the boards flat in years to come. Regarding dovetails remember dovetails have been around a lot longer than routers

Unless you have a dowelling jig or are extremely confident in your drilling and placement, I would avoid dowels and just glue them up. If the dowels are out of alignment of could make the top uneven.

As was said earlier, the dowels are just for alignment, the long grain glue edge will be plenty strong enough. If they are square and flat then you shouldn't have too many problems. I'd probably glue them in two blocks, then square those up, before joining the two together.

Another alternative is to use a biscuit jointer to help align things. Or rout a trench down both sides and use a spline. But all these things simply add a risk of error.

Trav

HI all thanks for the advice, i actually bought a dowelling kit including a jig and some 10mm by 38mm dowels. I just thought the dowels looked too small for the wood. I'm surprised that the glue would be strong enough to hold the wood together, i would've thought that there would have been a large risk of the joint cracking open in the future. I'll take the advice about glueing the planks together so that the growth rings alternate between the boards though if that will things stronger. And i'll space the dowels apart in the spacing you suggested chambezio, i've bought this dowelling kit so i'm keen to give it a go.
I had a go at squaring up a board using my electric plane, but it wasn't looking good so have found a guy nearby who has the right equipment to true up the boards (though thanks for the offer shanesmith80 )
Thanks for the advice and the warm welcome to the forum, it's going to be a fun project!
Cheers,
Ben