BrentD

I have built bench tops out of maple by making the 12" wide sections, surface planing and then gluing those sections together. But when I recently made a 36" wide 3" thick maple bench top, I sequentially glued up 1.5" thick boards because they would bend a bit and mate together as the bench top grew. I found I could put together about 4 boards at a crack so it took me about a week to get the whole top glued up this way, but the glue joints are far tighter than when I had done the 12" wide sections.

I leveled the top by building a set of rails and a sled that allowed me to run a 1" wide router bit over the whole table. It is deadnuts flat and without an twist.

I figure the finished top weighs right around 180# or a bit more. So, careful planning was necessary when moving it around or flipping it over.

For my money, there are no substitutes for pipe clamps in building one of these.

Brent