Thread: Milled railway sleepers/bridge timbers for Roubo workbench?

Sounds like you're on the right track to build a wonderful bench.
I often trawl the local ads for Jarrah sleepers or some similar species, but haven't came across any,
Seems like it could be the cheapest way to get tropical slabs.
Chris Harbor on youtube has made a big timber framed greenhouse and some other stuff which might be worth checking out,
in regards what to expect with steel/tannins and dealing with some rot.
Don't know if he has a big pile of them, but he is definitely making good use of those sleepers.

Make sure to take some photos, would be nice to see.
Good luck with it

Tom

I built my bench with used bridge decking. The stringer logs that formed the structure of the bridge had given way and the decking wasn't completely shot. Preparation of the timber was a time consuming process, removing the bridge spikes and ground in grit from the surface of the boards then dressing them. Some boards had a bit of rot so there was wastage as well. The wood didn't cost me anything other than a couple of planer blade sharpening's. At least my decking was quite stable having been nailed to a bridge for 15 years. I'm happy with how the bench turned out but it was always intended to be a bench for working on and not a piece of "show furniture".
Just be aware that bridge decking is likely to be cut from a lower grade of timber with knots and other defects. As long as the timber is dry solid and stable it should be fine.

Thanks for the replies! I'll definitely check out Chris Harbour. There seems to be heaps advertised on Facebook marketplace and gumtree including "new" unused railway sleepers for $55 each so it definitely seems like the cheapest way to go. Most of the sellers also offer dressing of the timber so that would make life infinitely easier since I don't have access to that kind of machinery.

I'll definitely make sure to post photos if I do go down this route.

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