Step 1: Determine overall dimensions needed. Once joined, repeat planing and sanding to achieve a nice flat working surface. I took my hand plane and belt sander to square up stock before joining the two halves. Once your two halves are completed, now would be a good time to run on a jointer/planer to prepare for final thickness. The best way for this is to have a scrap board for a spacer. Warning: Make sure you remember to leave room for your legs (tenon) to come through your table top(mortise). Once I had approximately 5 screws/board, I would glue next one and repeat, then clamp. For each board I glued together, I screwed in 2.5' wood screws as well for extra clamping/holding power. I also want to state, I did this glue up untraditionally, but for my purpose it has served extremely well. If your total top width is over 12' or so, I would strongly suggest to glue your top in two sections and then glue them together as I did. Step 4: Now it is finally time for glue up. Note: I do enjoy this feature, however I sometimes find it as a catch all and hard to keep organized. I centered mine lengthwise and one board in from edge. It's absolutely critical you take your time here and you measure three times and cut once. Step 3: Preparing top for catch all 'cubby hole' (optional) If you have to have a 'cubby hole' you need to dadoe out 6-10' of material anywhere from 1-2' deep. You will cut to final length at a later step. * Make sure to add a couple inches to your overall length here.

Clamp on a guide fence and cross cut all of them with your circular saw to length.

Step 2: Position all the boards you will need to achieve your top width square and flat (take a board perpendicular to and butt up all boards needing to be cut). This gives you a nice flat, square top to work on. Now, reposition fence to 3' and now rip other side of all. Easier way to complete task is to first set your fence to 3.25 inch (inside of kerf), rip all. Step 1: Rip all lumber so your 2X4's will have a final dimension of 1.5 x 3'.

Photos Workbench free