How to build a Torsion Box

Last week I was digging into my precious collection of the Fine Woodworking Magazine looking for articles about torsion boxes and tables, so I extracted some information for this weeks Blog plus a couple of videos from “The Wood Whisperer” that I think are really interesting.

But, what is a torsion box? A torsion box is a completely flat, very sturdy and relatively lightweight surface, and anyone designing anything structural and rectilinear should understand its principles.

The concept is simple, even if construction can be tedious: Two flat, horizontal surfaces are sandwiched over a grid of cross members, and once the sandwich is glued shut, a rigidity much greater than that possessed by the individual parts is achieved.

For furniture builders who require completely flat assembly surfaces, a torsion box is often one of the first things they'll build to kit out their shop.

“The Wood Whisperer” Marc Spagnuolo, put together a pretty comprehensive 20-minute-plus video on how he built his. Spagnuolo shows you how to get past the dilemma of building your first torsion box, which is: how do you construct a perfectly flat surface, before you've got a perfectly flat surface to assemble it on?

Click the pictures to watch the videos.

Part 1

Part 2

Cheers, Gaston