How much wood for a workbench top?
A 24″ × 72″ × 3″ laminated workbench top in southern yellow pine — the classic budget slab, face-glued from 8/4 stock.
Parts total 53.4 BF; with 15% waste you'd buy 61.5 BF — about $184.38 at our 2026-08 price estimates, weighing roughly 179 lb.
Cut list
| Part | Species | Qty | Thick | W × L | BF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Laminations | Southern Yellow Pine | 16 | 8/4 | 3.25″ × 74″ | 53.44 |
Cost by species
| Species | Buy (BF) | $ / BF | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southern Yellow Pine | 61.5 | 3.00 | $184.38 |
Sixteen 8/4 strips on edge make a ~24″ top once jointed. Yellow pine framing stock works too — rip 2×10s to skip most of the knots.
Why it's built this way
Laminating strips on edge is the whole trick: each strip's quartersawn face ends up as the work surface, so the finished top wears and moves like quartersawn lumber even though it started as cheap flatsawn stock. It also lets you cut out every knot and crown before glue-up. Three inches of southern yellow pine is heavy on purpose — a bench that weighs 200+ lb doesn't walk across the shop when you plane against a stop.
At the lumberyard
Buy construction lumber a month early and sticker it indoors — framing stock often leaves the store at 15–19% moisture and will shrink hard in a heated shop. Pick through the rack for boards with the pith (the tree's center) absent and rings running steeply across the end grain. Kiln-dried ("KD-HT") stamps beat green ("S-GRN") stock by weeks of waiting.