Maple bench

17 years ago

I was lucky enough to pick up a used bakers bench. It's 4' x 8' x 2 1/4" and was made by the Boos company. It's in pretty good shape.

In order to use it for our countertop I will have to do a little cut and splice. It's nearly twice as wide as we need but not quite long enough; I have enough material to do the job if I can just make clean cuts and a good splice.

The bench is very heavy- 324 lbs.- and it's going to be a challenge cutting it. I envision setting up a staging area on the ground and cutting it with a skill saw, but I'd appreciate suggestions, advice, warnings. I'll have to make about a 6 ft. rip cut and a 2 ft. cross cut as well as the sink cut out.

Thanks,

Mark

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Comments (3)

bobismyuncle
17 years ago
If you are going to cut this with a Skilsaw, I recommend that you clamp up a straightedge to guide the saw through the cut. Plan to either put the cut edge to the wall (assuming it's a wall cabinet and not an island or peninsula) and/or use a hand plane to clean up the saw marks. Will your Skilsaw cut 2.25" through?

As far as the "splice" this is going to be more difficult to get a good joint as having all the boards end at the same line is going to show. I assume that the original is rounded over on the edge and maybe shows signs of use, so to get a clean surface, cut both edges. If you can orient the splice at the sink cutout, this will limit the joint to the front and back of the sink and thus, less obvious. I'd probably use a router to cut a spline joint and use epoxy (waterproof and strong) to glue the splice.

For the sink cutout, a sabre saw would be the tool of choice, again assuming you get a blade that can cut that thick. Sharp blade, go slow and watch for blade drift.
sombreuil_mongrel
17 years ago
Yeah, you are going to need a 8" skilsaw to get through 2.25; 7.25" skilsaws only cut 2.125" max.
Casey
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marknmt
Original Author
17 years ago
Thanks both. Yeah, the depth of cut with the skillsaw will be an issue, but one I can get past.

About doing the sink cut out- I had anticipated marking the corners with a drill, and then lowering the running skillsaw into the bench. I could do this on the bottom side, and my initial cuts could be quite shallow- just scoring, really. Then if I needed to I could fix errors.

Or am I making this too hard?

Happily, most of the crosscut splice will be buried by the sink flange. I'll have about 3 1/2" of actually joinery to accomplish on one side of the sink and about 1 1/2" on the back side. Should be able to make it disappear if I'm patient.

Thanks again for your help.

Mark