On 03/18/2010 12:31 AM, Pinstripe Sniper wrote:
I've got a question. Let's say for sake of discussion this glued
together work bench top is ~3" thick. How about getting a really
long drill bit and drilling say a 5/16" or 3/8" hole across the width
of the bench top - perhaps at the middle of the thickness or maybe a
bit lower/toward the bottom? (Kind of like rebar in a concrete slab)

Then you'd put threaded rod though the holes and terminate the ends
with washers and nuts and put the wood slightly in compression.

Would this make for a stronger/stiffer top or would differential
expansion/contraction cause problems?

The purpose of rebar in a concrete slab is to work around the fact that
concrete is very weak in tension.

If you build a trestle end and lay the slab of wood on top, running
threaded rod through the bench will buy you very little. The one place
where it makes sense is in a shoulder vice where you have a lot of
tensile force essentially pulling the benchtop apart and so the threaded
rod resists that force.

Chris