"Ben" wrote:

I'm looking at building a woodworking bench for myself and have
familiarised myself with the plans that are sold on the internet. All
the Kits and commercally availiable, ready built benches feature fine
lumber of 3+ inch thickness for the top - be it birch, beech or other.
snip
There must be reasons for the choice of real lumber for these
workbenches I see foir sale (other than they are beautiful).

You've gotten lots of good advice here about building of a bench top
with sheet goods, but not much in the way of answer to this question.
I'll chime in with my $0.02. Yes, beauty is one of the reasons.
Secondly, these benches are optimized for traditional methods, and
those using such methods have an affinity for solid wood, and tend to
eschew MDF, plywood, and the like. Most of the practical advantages of
a solid top (such as stiffness) can easily be compensated for in the
proper design of the sheet good top. On the other hadn, you can't
easily put a shoulder vise or European tail vise on a plywood top, and
the skirt needed to properly stiffen the plywood may interfere with
easy clamping of goods to the top (especially if, like I, you fail to
anticipate that need in building your base).

I built a traditional bench a year ago and just love it. But I will
not allow any electrons to be consumed in work at that bench; it is
strictly for my hand work. I have that luxury because of my first
bench, which is a bench made of material not yet mentioned in this
thread, a solid core door. For an only or first bench, I'd suggest a
solid core door or a sheet good (doubled or tripled 3/4") bench.
You'll give up a little convenience when you plane or hand cut
dovetails, but will benefit more with the larger surface for glue-ups,
etc. In fact, I just had to draw an ellipse. Thought nothing of taping
some construction paper to my old bench top then stapling string at
the focii to draw the ellipse. If all I had were my new traditional
bench, I'm not sure how I would have done it, since I am sure I would
not approach it with a staple gun!

--
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