Would Acacia Wood be a good choice for a Workbench top?
Tym40
| Posted in General Discussion on
My neighbor has offered me about 1000 sqft of Acacia Wood prefinished flooring that he has left over from his recent remodel. I have been planning on making a new workbench and thought I would use it for the top. I have not worked with this type of wood before and am not sure of the exact species. I can say that it is very colorful with lots of deep browns and light blond highlights. My thought is to plane off the top finish as well as the grooved bottom and glue the random length 3 1/2″ boards together to create a nice thick heavy top. Any material I have left I plan on using to build the tool hutch that is in the current issue of FWW Tool and Shop magazine.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be great…
Replies
Thoughts, someone else can give suggestions
Planing that many boards by hand is going to take some time. I'm assuming you have either a power planer or jointer to process the boards. I'm also assuming the flooring is tongue and groove. Once you rip the tongue and groove away you will be left with a piece that is about 2 3/4" wide. Depending on the type of bench you have in mind, that is thin for a workbench top. It is doable, you may need to build a top that uses aprons to stiffen it up as in a scandinavian bench.
If the wood has really nice color and figure is seems a shame not to use it in a project that highlights and takes advanage of the woods characteristics.
gdblake
As Mom used to say, it depends
When you say "flooring", I picture the typical thin strips seen in the flooring sections of home improvement stores - typically something like 1/4" thick, and varying lengths. That might be OK for a general-purpose work surface, but probably not for a traditional woodworking bench, where a 2" or thicker top is typically preferred.
If the stock you are being offered is thicker, say, 3/4" or more, then it's a different story. Stock of that nature might lend itself to face-gluing to construct the top you'd need.
Maybe you could swap it
Check out some of the centers that deal with surplus and items salvaged from remodeling homes.
Maybe one has a butcher block counter out of maple etc. Swap the flooring for the counter.
Seems laborious and wasteful to plane off all the finish and mill work. I wouldn't have fun trying to stack up all those little lengths to face glue them to make up a thick top. Not really worth using them flat in flooring orientation.
Thats a good option. If I could get someone to trade for most of it (I think I will keep some to make the face frame for the Tool Hutch) I might come out with alot of saved hours at the planner and tablesaw. I will let you know what I come up with.
My biggest question I guess was is this type of wood hard enough or too hard to use as a top. I will have to play around with it to find out.
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