Building a workbench

[Kevin in California]

I've started milling the 2 x 4's for the top, cut 18 of them to 68" long and ran the sides of each though my drum sander. Tonight I'll cut the "rounded" edges off on my bandsaw and they will be down to about 3 1/4", then I can start laminating them together to form the top.
My plan is to do 3 sections of 6 boards each. Run those through a planer on both sides, then glue the 3 sections together and any unevenness at that point I'll smooth out with a handplane. The depth should end up just over 26" and my final length till be either 66 or 67".
Fun fun fun.

[Kevin in California]

So I've got 18 boards now with the rounded edges trimmed off and they should be ready for laminating. I hope to do the first section tonight.

[Kevin in California]

So I got the first of the 3 sections for my top laminated last night, and after 2 hours of clamp time, I took the clamps off and hand planed the bottom first relatively flat, then flipped it and did the same to the top, just to even things up, thus the pile of shavings on the floor. This doug fir planes like a dream, but you do need to watch the grain as with any wood. I did get some gaps between a couple of boards, but the worst will be on the bottom and I'm not worried about that.
What I did not do, but will do with the next two sections is hand plane the sides of each board to make sure they are flat. I relied on my drum sander to do that, and obviously it was not good enough, so a bit more hand work tonight on the next 6 boards before I glue up the next section.

[Kevin in California]

Moving along. I now have three sections for the bench top laminated, each is just under 8 1/2" wide, so once put together my top will be around 26 1/2" wide. Next comes a lot of hand planing to flatten the bottoms of these sections, then glue them together and make the full bench top flat and level.

[Kevin in California]

A lot of progress made Saturday, the top is all joined, but not yet surfaced. The base is assembled, still have to trim off the pegs that pulled the mortise and tenon joints tight and do some sanding. Next I will hand plane the bottom of the bench top flat where it will set on the trestles and bore a couple of 1" holes for locating dowels, then I can flip it all over and start flattening the top, lastly trimming the ends off to bring the top to 66". The top as is weighs 100lbs, so it will drop a little after planing and trimming.

[dave d]

Looking good Kevin. It looks to me like the top surface may be just a bit higher in the center section, and so this may be a candidate for using a router on a sled. Of course, planing it will work fine too, and lord knows you have the planes to do it, plus that would definitely avoid all of the dust from routing. I just wanted to point this out as an option to consider, as it would have been much easier for me to do it this way because my top is made of hard maple, which can truly be a PITA with grain going in opposite directions (depending on how it was laminated). For those not familiar with the router-on-a-sled technique, here's a handy video.

[Kevin in California]

Last night I plane the bottom of the top flat where it would set on the trestles, and where the face and end vises will be mounted, then drilled for two 1" dowels which position the top on the base. Eventually I will also be putting in lag screws to secure the top. The bench as it sits is 37 1/4" high.
So it is now ready for the top to be flattened. I've got to get my Bedrock #605 iron scary sharp for this procedure and it will be a workout. I will be taking off 1/8" to 1/4" of material I'm guessing when said and done.