Work bench material

[MGUY]

Hi everyone. I have a question about wood for my work bench. I have some left over pressure treated 4 x 4 posts that I would like to use. Would this type of wood be ok, or should I use something else ?

Thanks

 

[PAToyota]

A couple quick thoughts would be absorbing the "treatment" into your hands as you work there and the possibility of inhaling the stuff if you ever did anything that "smoked" it... I'd much prefer "clean" wood over treated for such an application.

Now if you mean for the posts and not the benchtop, I'd see no reason not to use it.

 

[Itzkwik]

Treated wood also seems to twist or warp with age especially inside as it dries out.

 

[russlaferrera]

Go with steel . Channel, angle iron, pipe or a combo of all. It will stronger, lighter, heavy duty and will be stable.

 

[Uncle Buck]

Hi everyone. I have a question about wood for my work bench. I have some left over pressure treated 4 x 4 posts that I would like to use. Would this type of wood be ok, or should I use something else ?

Thanks

I think I used left over CCA 4x4 posts from another project for legs on several of my work benches and never had any kind of problem whatsoever. I think you run into more of a problem with pressure treated wood twisting when exposed to the elements for years such as decks, I have seen no such problems with the CCA I used inside.

 

[russlaferrera]

This is a work bench I built last year. It's 42 in high 2 ft X 8ft It's higher than most as I can sit on a stool and work on starters and the like.View attachment 12913

 

[burger]

Last winter I built a workbench that used 4x4 pressure treated lumber for the legs. The back two legs were about 7' tall so I could hang a sheet of pegboard above the bench. The legs twisted so far that the pegboard buckled in the middle. I ended up cutting the bench apart and using the lumber to make a better bench.

 

[jimvannoy]

I have a big 3'x8' bench I built with treated 4x4's I had left over for the legs with 2x4 framing bolted to them. It has a big heavy steel top on it and it's holding up fine after several years of hard use.

 

[hatchy]

I built my fish tank stand out of treated 4x4s and after 5 years, it's now showing any problems. My tank weights in around 2500 pounds.

 

[NOMAD]

Should work fine for legs. As others mentioned, long runs may warp as it dries out.
I built rolling tables out of 4x4 legs and left over plywood, formica countertops etc. They're not pretty but they certainly do the job.