Roubo - Alder too soft?

[MattF]

3 hours ago, Just Bob said:

For a place covered in trees the PacNW is tough.  I bought my bench wood (beech) at Edensaw Woods in  Port Townsend.  They have a huge warehouse and fairly reasonable prices.  I paid $2,25 a bf for the beech.  They also gave me a discount for quantity.  The problem is that with the ferry ride, for me it is a 4 hour round trip.  They deliver but I don't know how much they charge.  I refuse to use Crosscut because, I think, they are overpriced, and they are in Seattle, I will never spend another penny in that city.  A boat builder friend told me the other day that there a couple of places in Marysville, but I don't know anything about them.  Bell Forest gets rave reviews here, but I have not tried them yet.

Edensaw prices look good, but that's a 5 hour round trip. I guess I could make a Saturday out of it. I have never worked with European Beech. Janka scale lists it at 1300, seems plenty hard for a bench too me. Crosscut is expensive. Do you remember the name for the Marysville lumber yards?

 

Have you had any issues with the Beech moving?

[Just Bob]

55 minutes ago, MattF said:

Edensaw prices look good, but that's a 5 hour round trip. I guess I could make a Saturday out of it. I have never worked with European Beech. Janka scale lists it at 1300, seems plenty hard for a bench too me. Crosscut is expensive. Do you remember the name for the Marysville lumber yards?

 

Have you had any issues with the Beech moving?

Well beer was involved...I will email him tonight and see what he knows.  He builds boats for the Coast Guard so not a lot of wood.  But he said he could find out.  I will let you know.

The beech was a joy to work with, nice straight but kind of boring grain.  However it did move....and so did I, when I dropped the completed top on my foot breaking a couple of toes.   Other than that it has been great.

[JosephThomas]

6 hours ago, Mike. said:

be careful about taking any one person's advice as gospel, even guys on a podcast forum about woodworking.

The above was my only point, Eric's advice/opinion isn't gospel either. Otherwise I agree with everything you said.

[MattF]

5 minutes ago, Just Bob said:

Well beer was involved...I will email him tonight and see what he knows.  He builds boats for the Coast Guard so not a lot of wood.  But he said he could find out.  I will let you know.

The beech was a joy to work with, nice straight but kind of boring grain.  However it did move....and so did I, when I dropped the completed top on my foot breaking a couple of toes.   Other than that it has been great.

Ouch!!

[Eric.]

5 minutes ago, JosephThomas said:

The above was my only point, Eric's advice/opinion isn't gospel either. Otherwise I agree with everything you said.

Obviously it's not gospel, but it's a voice of reason based on logic and experience.  Why anyone would disagree just for the sake of disagreement is beyond my comprehension.  I'm still waiting to hear a good argument why someone should build a bench with soft, lightweight wood when hard, heavy, dense wood is available for dirt cheap.  Until you can explain that, your dissenting view is nothing more than contrarianism and I find it annoying.  If your marshmallow bench is so great then go ahead and post pics of it and some projects that you completed upon it, that way we can all weight the value of your opinion accordingly.  Until then I'll go on assuming you know nothing and you're just regurgitating crap you read elsewhere on the internet, which is helpful to no one.  And sorry you happen to be the person who's taking the brunt of my frustration at this moment, but I've had it with people arguing about things when they don't know what they're talking about.  I took a decent break from the forum not long ago for basically the same reason (BTW, exactly why we lost Trip, the best source of info this forum has ever known).  I decided to return anyway...perhaps a poor decision on my part.  Lose enough experienced voices and this place will just be a newbie echo chamber exchanging nothing but bad information.  "There are no wrong answers" is the biggest load of crap people who don't know anything feed to each other.  Good day.

[JosephThomas]

39 minutes ago, Eric. said:

Why anyone would disagree just for the sake of disagreement is beyond my comprehension.

This is the problem, lots of people have said their reasons (both in other threads here, on podcasts, on youtube, on other forums, etc)... you seem to either ignore or disregard them entirely because you think every other opinion is "just wrong."

My bench is made of european beech btw, it was handed down from family, I didn't build it.I'm not claiming to be an expert on building a bench. But mine has plenty of damage done to it by me and the previous owner, it's plenty hard for hand planing boards and chiseling out mortises or waste from dovetails.  I agree there are plenty of wrong answers...I just don't think soft maple is one of them. I think alder would suck. I just don't think hundreds of other people should read this thread looking for information and think "hard maple must be the only good option because Eric said so and no one is disagreeing with him."

[Tpt life]

More than Eric said so. @JosephThomas kind of makes your posts look like a witch hunt. Not altogether wrong, just aimed at one person of many. 

[Eric.]

5 minutes ago, JosephThomas said:

I agree there are plenty of wrong answers...I just don't think soft maple is one of them. I think alder would suck. I just don't think hundreds of other people should read this thread looking for information and think "hard maple must be the only good option because Eric said so and no one is disagreeing with him."

My bench is soft maple...I've stated that a million times.  I won't be building another one.  My only point is that hard maple is the best option, not the only option.  I never said only.  I always said best.

[BonPacific]

Worth pointing out that BellForest has a package specifically for the Guild Ruobo. Prices range from $735 (Ash) to $850 (Hard Maple). Looks like they've got free shipping right now too. Now that's a lot more than local alder would cost, but it's a good price-point to think about, and its hard to beat the dealer knowing your cut list ahead of time.

[JosephThomas]

You said a lot of other $#&@.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[estesbubba]

@Mike. my dealer actually actually has red leaf and silver maple and both are currently more than hard maple, and all are more than cherry. Wood pricing is strange sometimes. 

[bgreenb]

Add me to the list of people who used soft maple for the Roubo and regret it.  It's too soft.  The thing is that I had planned on building mine out of ash, but when I went to buy the lumber my dealer had just sold a ton of ash and there wasn't enough 8/4 for me, and I didn't want to come back.  Wanted to start right away.  I didn't use hard maple because I didn't feel like having to work with hundreds of board feet of hard maple.  It was also a fair bit more expensive at my dealer.  In retrospect, both are dumb reasons (fact, not opinion).  The price difference would've been a few hundred dollars on an already two thousand dollar bench, and who cares about it being a little more difficult to work with?  It's a project that you're supposed to only have to do once and enjoy a lifetime bench.  

Like Eric, I'm not gonna build it again.  It is what it is.  Don't get me wrong, I'm tremendously happy with the bench, but I see no reason to deny that hard maple would've been objectively better just for the sake of diversity of opinion on a woodworking forum. Actually, if I could go back I would suck it up and wait for the ash to be available, only because I prefer the look of ash to maple and am willing to sacrifice a little bit of weight and hardness for some extra aesthetic value.  But that's the thing:  I'll fully admit that hard maple is a better choice than ash for a bench - I would just be prioritizing aesthetics over the extra weight and hardness.

Eric is right about the following:

- Hard maple is a better choice than soft maple

- Ash is a better choice than soft maple. 

- There absolutely is a difference between hard maple and soft maple in chiseling efficiency *even if you're chiseling directly over a leg*

I honestly don't see how you can "disagree" with any of the above points, other than for the sake of disagreement/diversity of opinion, which bothers me just as much as it bothers Eric (and bothered Trip before he left in what was probably the biggest blow to this forum's value in history).  

Now, if you want to build your bench out of something else, maybe you have a good reason for it:  availability in your part of the country, you got a killer deal on some other lumber, you like the aesthetics of some other wood, or some other species makes your wife horny.  Fine, whatever.  Build your bench out of whatever you want!  But there's a difference between saying "yeah hard maple is the best choice for a bench but I built mine out of XYZ material for ABC reason" and saying "I built my bench out of XYZ material and XYZ is just as good as hard maple."  The former is fine - different strokes, different folks.  The latter is idiocy disguised as discussion.

See you all in another 6 months.

[wtnhighlander]

The usual advice for a workbench is to buy a hardwood that is plentiful and cheap in your area. In my area (New Mexico), that is Alder ($1.60/bf). I am worried however that it might be too soft, it has a Janka hardness of 590 (Poplar = 540, Soft maple = 700-900 depending on type). Any opinions on whether it is just too soft?

To focus this train wreck back on the original question, IS alder too soft to make a workbench?

Absolutely not. I build stuff on a white pine construction lumber bench, having only a pipe-clamp vice and holdfast. RichardA uses a poplar bench, as I recall. You can look at various project postings we each have made, and decide if these benches were successfully used. Alder is harder than both, and will make you a perfectly servicable workbench.

Now as to the question of alder being the BEST choice, the answer is obviously NO, with regards to durability, aesthetics, and work efficiency.

However, for some of us the factor of affordability outweighs all that.

I respect@Eric. for his knowledge, skill, and willingness to share (as well as being an active moderator here).

I do disagree with his oft-repeated statement (paraphrased, forgive me the lack of a direct quote) that woodworking is an expensive hobby, deal with it or find another.

I don't hold as law the idea of "buy once, cry once", either.

If you have the resources to buy the best, then by all means do so. But I would rather enjoy the craft at a mediocre level than to avoid it because going all out means the family goes hungry.

Now for a question of my own...how does hard maple compare with european beech as workbench material?

[Tpt life]

I have to ask if you truly mean that R? This is the guild build Roubo section. Are you seriously suggestion a Roubo inspired bench of white pine. I think instead you contributed to the train wreck by not seeing the area of the forum this is posted in. If all you can muster is white pine, don't build this guild build. It is way too much work for a bench that will need refreshing often. Choose a bench design that suits the material limitations. I think too many jumped in on this as "is alder too soft for a bench" when it was "is alder too soft for this bench?" Context matters. 

[wtnhighlander]

Agreed, Carus. That's why I asked for a comparison of hard maple and european beech. Surely those two species are worthy of auguing the better to build a roubo.

I only tried to answer the original question in the most direct and unopinionated way I could. And the original question is "is alder too soft for a bench"?

As a side note, I read the forums using the 'Unread' feature of Tapatalk. While the thread topic is clearly visible on my screen, the forum topic usually runs off the side. I had no clue this was specifically in the Guild Build section.

[Llama]

12 minutes ago, Mike. said:

snotty and uptight

My kind of people!  

[MattF]

1 hour ago, wtnhighlander said:

 That's why I asked for a comparison of hard maple and european beech. Surely those two species are worthy of auguing the better to build a roubo.

 

I am very interested in this comparison too. Wood data base shows these two to be quite comparable. Ive heard domestic Beech is subject to move more than European Beech.

[Just Bob]

3 hours ago, wtnhighlander said:

Now for a question of my own...how does hard maple compare with european beech as workbench material?

I made my bench with european beech it  was the right price, easy to work, and even though it is not a roubo (gasp) I really like it.  The wood has yellowed with age which might be a down side for some, but I don't mind.  It has some scratches and dents but it holds up well to my abuse, 

[Llama]

I shall make my bench out of ebony. 

[CandorLush]

56 minutes ago, Llama said:

I shall make my bench out of ebony. 

I would love to do that, just to be a dick

[Llama]

Just now, CandorLush said:

I would love to do that, just to be a dick

I want to do it so people can complain that my bench is too dark  

[Jim DaddyO]

This is like a "what is the best way to sharpen" thread.  Quite the rabbit hole.  Good to hear others opinions though.

That being said, Alder would not be my first choice.  You can make nice Strat and Tele bodies from Alder.

[MattF]

1 hour ago, Llama said:

I want to do it so people can complain that my bench is too dark  

Just paint it white

[SawDustB]

18 minutes ago, MattF said:

Just paint it white

I thought that was the approved finish for walnut. With ebony you should paint orange stripes on it and make your bench look like a tiger.

[bushwacked]

no one has mentioned oak .... why is that? Almost as hard as hard maple and cheaper than hard maple, at least at my store. .... just sayin

 

Also @Eric I do miss Trip so much! That was a huge loss seeing him go I could ask that crazy old man anything under the sun and he would most likely be able to answer it with like 5 paragraphs of info amazing haha