Mike W. writes:

>There's a local sawmill that had some 8/4 red oak, so I bought a bunch, 
>ripped it into 2x4s (true 2x4, not the junk houses are framed with), and 
>have glued them up into 4x4s (Excel glue).

My next project is going to be a workbench. The base will be 4 large 
legs with stretchers between and a big ol' slab of oak dropped on top. 
I will probably have to glue up the top but my question right now is 
wrt the legs. At first, I was going to glue up stock just like Mike 
did. Then I got to thinking of asking the sawyer for several lengths 
of 6 inch square oak from the center portion of the tree. This would 
be the portion of the tree which usually goes into fence post 
material. I have a local sawmill which can probably give me what I 
want but I wanted to check it out with some galoots who are much 
smarter than me. Is this material stable enough for workbench legs? 
Are there any other concerns I should have using the center portion of 
the tree? What does a sawmill usually do with this part of the tree? 
Is it waste? (Read that as, can I get it cheap?) Thanks for any 
input. 

Paul Gillespie