That sound Very cool to me. I like the idea of recycleing family furniture
I worthy cause.
DF = Doug Fir? Idunno'bout that. If I follow correctly, you would have 1"
"veneer" of maple over 2" of DF.

1" thick stock cut to 2" or 3" wide boards laminated as standing up, glued side
by side.

That sounds like you are asking for a big
cup as the expansion and contraction rates differ.
90 degrees to the DF Like plywood on steroids? - Terrible idea :-(. The
seasonal movement will split it it.

Understandable

Here's what I would (and to some degree did):
1 - invest in Landis' "The Workbench Book", about $20 and really fun read.

I just might do that...

2- Most of the beating, pounding and stress that wou will put on a bench for
hand work is within 6-8 inches of the front edge. Build up the beef in the
front where you need it.

It'll all be 3" thick as a whole top. I can't get too special here...

3- Suppplement you stock with more maple. I purchased "brown maple". It's
maple, but with some heartwood. Same stuff, not as pretty, half the price.

I asked the exotic woods dealer, he said he's never tried to get it and never
heard of it, seems a shot futile. But there is a lot of wood in the table so a
little extra 5/4 maple wouldn't be too bad or too much, if needed.

4 - Keep all the wood going left to right. If you do want bread-board ends
(going front to back) you can only lock the end at one point and let the
rest of the joint move with the seasons.

I'll have to learn about that joint thing, I'll buy that book.

Cheers,
Steve


Then it would all have to be butcher-blocked, end to end. I wouldn't know how to
arrange that unless I used an even-odd pattern like brick laying. That is because of
sizes of the pieces of wood in the table, I can't do an "all-like" gluing pattern that
will show weakness and be weaker like all the leaf pieces aligned up in the middle.

As far as strong seasonal differences in my town, hardly anything. The front door
gets a touch harder to close in rainy weather without any real water touching it
besides that which is in the air. Which is probably your very strong point of course...
duh! But the trestle will have to DF (previously, yes I had meant douglas fir, our
only local framing wood).

Alex