I'm thinking of making a bench for woodworking using concrete blocks for the
supports (legs) with a stout timber frame on top.
Any comments / advice!

Frank McGuire wrote:
I'm thinking of making a bench for woodworking using concrete blocks
for the supports (legs) with a stout timber frame on top.
Any comments / advice!

Shouldn't you be asking Fred Flintsone?

--
Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

Maybe your right. He might know something about engineering!

"The3rd Earl Of Derby" wrote in message
. uk...
Frank McGuire wrote:
I'm thinking of making a bench for woodworking using concrete blocks
for the supports (legs) with a stout timber frame on top.
Any comments / advice!

Shouldn't you be asking Fred Flintsone?

--
Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

Frank McGuire wrote:

I'm thinking of making a bench for woodworking using concrete blocks for the
supports (legs) with a stout timber frame on top.

Sounds like more trouble to make than doing it all in timber. How are
you goint to attach the top to the uprights? You need to have a very
strong and rigid joint here - I'd expect something involving long bolts
down into the lower blocks might do it, but that's a lot of metal bits
and pieces to be making.

Frank McGuire wrote:
I'm thinking of making a bench for woodworking using concrete blocks for the
supports (legs) with a stout timber frame on top.
Any comments / advice!

I wouldnt do any heavy hammering on top or it'll come loose regardless
of how you fix the top. the "legs" (blocks) will have no give but the
top will, recepie for disaster

Frank McGuire wrote:
I'm thinking of making a bench for woodworking using concrete blocks for the
supports (legs) with a stout timber frame on top.
Any comments / advice!

Sounds like a crap idea.

cheers
Norman

Frank McGuire wrote:
I'm thinking of making a bench for woodworking using concrete blocks for the
supports (legs) with a stout timber frame on top.
Any comments / advice!



I thought 'what a good idea...' until I read the other replies. Now, on
reflection, I don't think it's much use.

The problem is that the bench support has to transmit the loads, shock
loads in this case are the problem, into the floor. Wood will flex just
enough to convert the shock load into a short spread of load - in short
it's an very short term energy store. Concrete just doesn't do that so
well, and the weak points will be the mortar joins and the places the
wooden top to meets the blocks. The only way round it is to put some
other energy store into the system, rubber blocks and steel wires in
tension might help, but the wood is easier.

R.

The message
from Richard Downing contains these words:

The problem is that the bench support has to transmit the loads, shock
loads in this case are the problem, into the floor.

I suppose you could always have stub-legs into sand-filled concrete
piers. It's all getting a bit complex, isn't it!

--
Skipweasel
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.