Thread: Cypress pine for workbench?

Could be OK - you will want well fitting joints to keep her strong, pine not really considered great bench building stuff, depends of course what you want to do with the bench....
To be honest, the best thing I've done of late to improve my woodworking is to stop buying wood from Bunnings!

mate

To be honest I wouln't go that route! I made a assembly table out of 75x75 cyprus pine from Bunnings the stuff is very green and has shrunk over the last two year making the table a bit tippy etc. If you can get your hands on some 100x100 recycled hardwood and machine it down/clean it up it would make an excellent frame for a bench......just finding the stuff for a decent price is a challenge. I am like you, I also want to make a decent bench but am struggeling to find some well priced wood.

Not an Heirloom bench but something that will be very functional is the "Getting Started in Woodworking" series off the Finewoodworking website, the plans are free and for me if budget is a problem I think this is what I will build.

Milo

Have a look here for timber their kiln dried is lovely to use Just Wood Australia provides oregon of unsurpassed quality in Australia I will be making a new fangled workbench along these lines http://content.jettools.com/content/...kbenchplan.pdf

Just my couple of cents...I recently went to a salvage/demolition yard a picked up a pile of jarrah at a quite good price. Plus being salvaged, it's all really old and ready to use. Not sure if this is an option for you.

Originally Posted by snafuspyramid

Would Bunnings style "cypress" posts be suitable for making a frame for a bench? All I know is that it's some sort of Australian native, and is very hard, heavy, water resistant and planes well.

This sort of tree?

You might be better off with some Monterey Cypress.....Marcrocarpa. Reasonably stable, if a bit soft.

Have you thought about making the frame out of structural pine? I made mine this way and because I have a jointer and a thicknesser I was able to remove all that funny rippling and make it look better. The legs were double thickness and the rails were lap jointed; the whole thing is very stiff and although it's made of pine it is as solid as a rock and doesn't move when I need to really belt something. The benchtop is made from Tas oak.

Down Moorabin way there was a timber supplier I used to frequent who specialised in red gum and cypress. His office was built from an old railway carriage! His prices were very reasonable and he didn't mind me pulling out length after length of timber until I found the planks I wanted. I love the colour of red gum and would love to have made my bench top from it.

Cypress is quite a pretty timber but tends to be very knotty. It is one of the harder softwoods and is prone to splintering, but the smell when you cut it is gorgeous!

I looked at the Cypress Pine decking at Bunnings and thought about using it (laminated to a thickness) for a bench as well. It looked hard (several times harder than Radiata Pine) and the price is right. However it also has a large number of knots, which is not a good thing. They will eventually dry and fall out leaving voids, or just be difficult to plane down. I resisted the temptation.

I am going to build a new bench. My existing one is nearly 20 years old and only 5 ft long. Plus the Karri top is wearing thin.

My preference is for a light timber top. Dark tops do not reflect light well. I was going to use Tassie Oak, but I have come up with European Oak in a 4" thickness. I have a lot of salvage Jarrah to use for the base.

Hope this helps.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by derekcohen

They will eventually dry and fall out leaving voids, ....

Generally that is NOT the case with White Cypress. If the knot is tight when green, it will stay that way.

Originally Posted by Vernonv

Generally that is NOT the case with White Cypress. If the knot is tight when green, it will stay that way.

Hi Vernon

My experience with Cypress is small, but I think you are right. They looked tight. Still, I really would not like to plane down the surface - hard knots and grain going all over the show. I do think that the colour is wonderful and would enjoy building a cabinet if I could select out knot-free pieces.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Hi Eddie,

In my opinion, as long as the Cypress is seasoned, dry and stable I would have no problem in using it for a base. Cypress Pine is used a lot for flooring over East and up North. Yes it has knots but on the floors I have seen the knots were all very tight, no shrinkage problems at all. It is resistant to whiteants which is the reason for use in termite areas.

Here in Perth there is one company that makes outdoor furniture out of it exclusively because of its durability, it has a lot of oil in it too, and this may help with the durability outdoors.

I like the stuff and would be happy using it. But as Derek said, it may be difficult to work by hand, power tools may be best to tackle those knots. Best of luck with whatever timber you choose.

Keep us posted.

Cheers
Pops

I plan to use the timber for the frame only, so the knots shouldn't be as much of a problem. Which isn't to say that they won't make things difficult. But provided they're clear of the joints, it'll mainly be a cosmetic thing.

I've decided to use yellowtongue flooring for the top. (I recently used it for the top of a 400 litre aquarium cabinet I made - my first woodworking project ). It's extremely strong and very flat, and so cheap it's virtually disposable. I might laminate some framing pine to put underneath for extra support.

I was considering using framing pine - as I did for aquarium cabinet - and it's certainly very cheap, and if you use enough it gets heavy enough. Still, even a little bit of moisture ruins it, and it'll be exposed to all sorts of mess (especially from waterstones). Plus, I'm in a rental property, so I want something I can unbolt and move, which isn't really possible with pine.

Where can I get Cypress Pine in the Eastern suburbs - around Oakleigh area, ish - that's not Bunnings? I'm looking for big outdoor posts, 100x100. In my experience, Bunnings timber isn't properly seasoned, is poorly stored and I wouldn't even trust the staff to cut it roughly enough to fit into the car...

pirea timber and tile importers they are both in natalia ave oakleigh sth or you could try http://www.redgumsupplies.com.au/ just down in braeside they have some of the nicest cypress stored inside and properly stacked I have thicknessed and jointed there stock quite successfully comes up a lovely honey colour

Hi Eddie,

I think yellow tongue is water resistant as well, not water proof but OK for splashes, and as you say relatively cheap, good for a knock-down bench.

Can't help with a supplier in Victoria. All I know is that the company here in Perth imports Cypress by the shipping container load from Queensland.

Cheers
Pops
Edit: Fubar posted while I was typing. Looks like you have a supplier. We now await the build.

I've contacted the suppliers listed, and I can only find undressed, unseasoned cypress pine. (Tile Importers might be different, but they won't cut their stock to size - I can't fit three metre posts in my car).

The fact it's undressed isn't a problem (more fun planing).

But I'm concerned that the fact that it's "off the saw" will make it likely to move about.

On the other hand, from what I can see, the advantage of using cypress pine is that it has "low shrinkage and movement rates". I assume this applies to unseasoned stuff as well.

Is this a recipe for disaster? I'll be using MT joints secured with Veritas bench bolts. Certainly a bit more forgiving than any other joint I can think of, but it's still unlikely to appreciate too much movement.