In my last post I talked about gluing up the legs for my Roubo bench from 2x6 lumber, well, I found some 6x6 pine post lumber that will work great so I'm going with that to save me all the work of doing a glue up of other materials.

So, this is all about squaring up the legs, doing the layout of the joinery and then cutting the dovetail and tenon. Things went OK really, that is to say I did not have to toss out any wood and start over again. But I had my share of problems as you are about to see leaving me with more work to do before I layout the matching mortise and dovetail on the bench top.

I began by placing a 35" piece of 6x6 in my leg vise and started planing all 4 sides flat and square to each other. Things were going smooth really but I noticed that on every side of the first leg I had a significant amount of planing to do at the same spot. And then when I got to the last surface it was impossible to make it square to both adjacent sides. Hmmm..... Then it hit me. I neglected a step. A step that I once made a special tool to perform and I failed to use it. Take a look at the photos below.

The two sticks in the above photo are called winding sticks. They help you see if the board you are working on has a twist in it. The simple way to tell you how they are used it to show you really so take a look a the next photo.

You sight down the front stick and look to see if the back stick is parallel to it. If not, like this photo shows the wood has a twist in it. Because I did not check this first, I had to go back and remove the twist by planing down the rear right side of the leg until the winding sticks looked like the next photo.

Nice! the twist is gone, but I still have to re-plane all the other faces of the leg because I had now screwed them all up by squaring them to a twisted surface. Eventually I got all 4 legs nice and square. Now lets talk about layout. Next photo please.

Here's a shot of the layout on the first leg. I put the blue hash marks on all the waist material to make it easy to see where the tenon and dovetail go. This is however the easy part. Next I try my hand at cutting the tenon and dovetail. I have cut tenons before, and I have cut dovetails a few times. But never this big and never on the same piece of lumber. Lets take a look at the process.

There is an old saying that is used to help people who use hand saws to cut good and straight when attempting this kind of stuff that goes like this. "Don't cut what you can't see". Here I have followed a line that is facing me as I cut (you can't see it in this photo). I also cut along the top layout line because I could see it as well. But I did NOT do any cutting on the opposite side that I can not see. Don't cut what you can't see.

Then you turn the piece around and cut down the other side of the dovetail cheek. This technique is easier said than done, but it is still great advice.

This is how I removed the waist material between the dovetail and the mortise. It's a lot like removing waist from a regular dovetail joint. You use a mallet (which I also made myself) an chisel to make a cut on the fit line at the bottom of the joint then drive the chisel straight down from the top to cut a chunk out. You do this on one side until you reach the middle. then flip the leg over and repeat.

So here is the finished product. Well, it still needs work because I am less than perfect, but you know what I mean. As you can see I was a tad off on the left side dovetail cheek by about 1.5 degree. That is no big deal, how ever I also goofed up on the tenon and that needs to be fixed. I got off line just a tad cutting one side thicker than the other. Oops. Hopefully, each of the other three legs will come out just a little better. The last on should be perfect right? lol.

Roubo Workbench Top Is Flat and Square!

I have nearly finished the planing on my workbench top, and I timed the ends off with a hand saw to bring it down to 6 feet long and square up the ends. The top is now flat, but still has some marks I need to plane out.

I was quite careful about sawing off the ends of the bench top, even using a speed square to check the saw blade. The results were OK, but not perfect. The over all bench in now square with in 1/32" and I am quite happy with that. However, the ends, while square across the width of the top are not very square in the thickness because the saw blade wanted to wonder despite my best efforts to keep it straight. Damn! It's not the end of the world but it will make mounting a end vise more difficult.

The photo above should clear up what I was saying about the ends being out of square through the thickness of the top. The line across the top however is nice and square.

So there it is 6 foot long and 20 1/2 inches wide. The next step is to start constructing the legs. I am unable to find any beam or post 6" X 6" at a local lumber yard. So, I have decided to laminate the legs using 2 x 6 pine boards. What a hassle, but it must get done so I can begin to cut the tenon and dovetail that secure the legs to the top. Once the legs are attached to the top, I will do a little more planing to remove saw marks from the top of the bench. I'm not going to do to much work on the top because the grain is not straight, and is very difficult to plane. I have been getting lots and lots of tear out on the top that I don't like, but there is not much I can do about it. Lucky 4 me, this is a workbench not a dining room table so some roughness on the surface is acceptable. 

Time To Glue Up The Top Of My Roubo Workbench

I have my bench top all glued up at last! I put the last clamp on at 12:30 central time. I used Titebond hide glue instead of yellow wood glue because it has a much longer working time (10 or more minuets VS 5 minuets with yellow glue.I will leave in in the clamps for 24 hours before removing the clamps to ensure the hide glue is set up proper.

It took 15 clamps total and I could have used 4 more if I had them. I started out with the two pieces side by side on the sawhorses joint edge up so I could spread the glue on. Once the glue was applied I turned each piece on it's side, with the glue edge facing the center for clamping. First I clamped the two ends flush with each other, then I placed a long pipe clamp in the center. If you assume the Oak has 10% moisture it weighs about 325 lbs so I use that center pipe clamp as a lever to rotate the whole piece up on edge.

 

If you have been reading this blog, you know that I had an issue with the center of the top not being flush when I ends are clamped flush. To correct that, I loosened the center clamp then using a 1/4" hole I had pre drilled in the bottom of the bench top I attached a steel bar and a piece of Maple with a 3/8" lag bolt. When I tightened the lag bolt it pulled the bow out of the bottom piece. Then I was able to put all the clamps on tight as possible. The top is still slightly out of line but only by about 1/32". I'm quite happy with that.

   

In addition to finishing the glue up I just received my latest purchase from ebay a couple of days ago. It is of course going to be the lead screw for the leg vise that is a major feature on a Roubo style workbench. This screw however was never used as a vice before, and will need to be modified a little. It is lacking a groove just above the threads where the garter attaches the screw to the chop. If I get lucky, I'll find someone with a wood lath who can cut the groove for me, otherwise, I'll be cutting it myself with some carving tools and a fine tooth saw.... yuck!

The person I purchased this wood screw from has a great ebay store full of unusual and vintage items many of which could be used on items we all love to make out of wood. Here is a link to her store:

Perpetual-Collector

Challenges Gluing Up The Top Of My Roubo Workbench

I'm almost there! After hours of hand planing the edges of rough cut Oak, I have nearly achieved two flat mating surfaces for the glue up. When I first checked the joint fit on the two massive slabs, I had a slightly convex surface on both halves, leaving me with no gap in the middle but 1/16th inch gaps on both sides of the middle. So, needless to say I started planing down the hump in the middle being very careful. Rather than just explain where I'm at now, lets go look at some photos of the situation.

Looks good right? So let's glue it up! Not so fast folks, the situation is not as good as this photo makes it look. Now I have wood to wood contact on both ends and a slight gap in the middle. Damn! too much planing. Now lets take a look at some other issues I will need to overcome before it's time to do a glue up. 

This shot is of the middle of the top side of the bench top. You can see I have about 1/4" of the bottom half that is not even with the top half. On both ends, the top and bottom line up perfectly, so it looks like the bottom piece is bowed just a tad. I need to fix this. My idea is to make a steel plate that spans both halves and has a couple of holes on each half big enough for some lag bolts. Then at glue up I can put the metal plate on the bottom of the bench top and drill pilot holes for the lag bolts. Then with both ends clamped flush, I can insert and tighten up the lag bolts pulling the two halves flush. Sound reasonable?

This is a pic of the bottom of the bench top. You can see that I have bark still along the edges of both halves that form a gap or valley. This is not a huge issue because it is on the bottom where no one will see it. Still, I want to do a repair after glue up so I am going to pour some epoxy in the valley then sand it smooth.

This is just another shot of the glue joint. You can see the gap in the middle of the bench top. On the end you see a fairly wide gap also but that is not an issue. I was having trouble with the planes digging in right on the very edge of the end grain. So I took a No. 4 and took the ends down a bit by planing cross grain on the end. That fixed the problem and I'll be cutting about 3" off each end after glue up so that gap will be cut off.

Jointing Two Edges To Make One Roubo Style Workbench Top

Today I'm covering the techniques I am using to be able to properly join my two slabs into one bench top using hand planes, a try square, and a 4 foot straight edge.

The photo above shows my two slabs clamped together so that both edges to be glued are facing up. They are also oriented so that ether piece only needs to be flipped on the long axis, raised a few inches, then set back down on top of the other piece at glue up time. That last part is important so that while planing the edges I have less to worry about because if I am slightly out of square across the short face, I'm still OK for glue up. That is because when one piece flipped upside down it's high and or low spots will be opposite of the high and low spots on the other piece thus canceling them out!

Here are the three hand planes I have been using on this project so far. From left to right they are a Stanley No. 4, a Stanley No. 5, and a Stanley No. 7.

I used the No. 4 plane first the bring down the rough spots and get the dimensions correct. My first few passes with the No. 4 were cross grain and diagonal strokes with the blade set a bit deep to cut fast. Then I moved on to the No. 5, sometimes called a Jack plane, it is longer than a No. 4 and helps to keep the edge straighter than the No. 4 can. When the edges start looking even and square you move on to the No. 7 which is 22" long and helps even out any high spots.

Here is a shot of a try square testing for square from what will be the top of the workbench. As you can see on the right side of the blade, I have more work to do with my hand planes to get this square. As mentioned above, this does not need to be perfectly square however I need to get it better than this before glue up.

I use a 4 foot straight edge to check for flatness along the edge of the pieces. Another way to check

for flatness is to do a dry run glue up. To do that I stack the two pieces on top of each other and take notice of how well they balance. If the top piece can freely pivot back and forth with little resistance I have a high spot in the middle of one or both pieces. If both halves resist pivoting and no light is visible through the joint things are ready for glue up! 

A shot of my No.7 jointing plane after taking a pass down the length of the edge.

This is what about 4 hours worth if hand planing will produce! It's a great workout!

  

The wood for my workbench top will be delivered tomorrow afternoon!

I have a slight change of plans concerning who I will be getting the wood for the 5" thick workbench top from. I was going with a guy in Nebraska who had a solid slab of  Ash, but he wanted nearly $400.00 for it. Today I met a man named Danny Blunk who lives near me and has a sawmill on his farm. I was going to see him just so we could talk wood and see what he had to offer. As it turns out he cut me two nice chunks of Oak about 6 and a half feet long 10" wide, and 5" thick while I watched. Nice!

See the photos below:

This is the log of Oak as I first saw it on Danny's saw. 

Once I told Danny I thought that piece of Oak would work, he fired up the tractor that powers the saw and started cutting the piece square for me. 

Here Danny is turning the log getting ready to slice off a 5" thick slab.

After all the slicing and dicing was done, these are the two pieces I wound up with. Once I joint Them up and clamp em down I'll have a 5" X 22" X 6 1/2' slab for my Roubo style workbench!

Meeting Danny was a pleasure in itself. He is a great guy and I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk with him. The wood was a like icing on the cake. 

If you happen to be in West central Iowa and need some custom cut wood at the best price possible lookup Danny Blunk of Otter Creek Sawmill Kiron, Iowa. The phone number is 712.676.3503 You won't be sorry!

Whats A Roubo Workbench You Say?

I suppose  by now at least some of you will be wondering exactly what the hell it is am talking about. Well, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words so take a look below.

Both photos are of the same bench which was built by Christopher Schwarz editor of Popular Woodworking magazine. 

So, looks pretty simple right?  Well it is really, but the sleek design and well placed hardware are what makes it so great. The legs are even with the edge of the bench and there is no skirt around the bench like you see in many European workbench designs. This means you can use a simple clamp to secure your workpiece down at any point on the bench. 

People who have built their own Roubo have historically put there own "spin" on the design adding features or changing things up in one way or another to make it their own so to speak and that's fine. But all TRUE Roubo benches have one thing in common, the leg vise. With a leg vise on one end and a simple holdfast on the other end you can clamp and support a board of any length to this bench to work on it.

The biggest challenge in building this bench is cutting the mortise   and tenons needed to mount the legs on the top and the stretchers to the legs. The jointary for the legs to top are unique because they involve a 30 degree dovetail and a tenon for each leg. The dovetail helps eliminate twisting of the joint while the tenon gives you lateral stability. The drawing below gives a better visual of what this joint looks like from the top.

 Please leave your comments, questions, and criticisms I would love to hear from all of you.

Doin It Old School

I don't know if I mentioned this yet, but I am building this bench entirely with hand tools. No bandsaw, no tablesaw, no jointer, no planer. When Mark cuts my slab out of an Ash tree it will be cut using a huge power saw. But that is not inconsistent with the way things were done in the 18th century really. People like Roubo would have purchased a slab from a sawyer who used a power saw driven by a waterfall or steam.

For those who may not be familiar with the kind of tools needed to build something like a workbench here is an overview.

Above we have a No 7 hand plane used to flatten the bench top. Other planes such as a No. 4 smoothing plane and a No. 5 Jack plane are also used in the process. The brace and auger bits will be used to hog out waist material in the mortises as well as drilling holes for putting dowel pins in the tenons.  

Here we have my bench chisels, mortice chisels, and various back saws.

This is a photo of my vintage hand saws made by Henry Disston & Sons company. One rip cut one cross cut. I really wish I had a larger variety but ya gotta go with what ya got sometimes. 

Above is a jointer's hammer to assist in assembly of the project, a pair of winding sticks to help determine if a piece of stock is twisted and in need of planning. And a large protractor with a pair of dividers for doing layout work.

I am sure other tools will be involved in this build but none of them will have a power cord attached! 

  

My Existing Workbench

Below is my existing workbench that will be replaced by the Roubo style bench I am building. The bench is huge and very heavy which is not a bad thing because you don't want it moving around when you're working on it. So what is wrong with this bench? Why am I going to replace it? Well, one big thing is my work space is about to shrink by 50 percent. A full half of our basement will be converted to a living area, and my shop must fit in the other half. So, I need a smaller bench. The existing bench is 8 feet long, nearly 40 inches wide, and 37 inches tall. By comparison the Roubo bench will be 6 feet long, 20 inches wide, and about 33 or 34 inches tall (not really sure just yet). Speaking of height, the old bench is too tall even though I am a 6 footer. A bench should be low enough so when you are using a hand plane for instance you can get your leg muscles involved. Another issue with the old bench is the 6 inch skirt that runs down both sides of the bench. Those skirts make it very difficult to clamp work pieces down to the bench a any given location. They get in the way! One of the primary features of a workbench is the ability to hold work securely. Not just in the vise, but anyplace on the bench using a clamp of some sort. The Roubo bench has no skirt, just a 5 or 6 inch thick top with a bottom surface that is flat and parallel to it. This makes it easy to clamp a workpiece anywhere you need to.

So, anybody want to buy a bench with a nice leg vice on it?

The Time Has Come

For several years now I have dreamed of building a workbench to the specifications found in the five volume woodworking masterpiece L'Art Du Menuisier written by the french cabinetmaker and author Andre Roubo in the 18^th century. Roubo's description of the bench is quite specific leaving little to the imagination. It is a simple design but stout and efficient in every way. The bench top is 5” thick, 20” wide, 6' long and is made of one solid slab of hardwood such as Elm, or Oak. The length of the legs vary according to how tall or short the craftsman using the bench is. Like the top, the legs are stout measuring as thick as 6” X 6”. Each leg attaches to the top using both a through tenon and a dovetail which is flush with the edge of the top. Wedges are driven into slight gaps in the tenon ensuring that the joint cannot come apart once made up.

The time has come at last for me to build my own version of the Roubo bench. I was not at all sure I could find the raw material to make such a bench at first. After all you don't find many slabs of hardwood with the above mentioned dimensions at the local home improvement center do you. Then while scouring Craigslist for suppliers I stumbled across Mark Sundermeier of American Arborist Wood Products in Omaha Nebraska. Mark was not just helpful he was genuinely interested in my project and agreed to cut me a custom slab of Ash specific to my task. If you have a need for high end wood products of any kind do yourself a favor and contact the American Arborist Wood Products by clicking here

It will be mid November before I have the money to pay for my slab of Ash and take it home. Until then, I will blog the details of my workflow for the bench as well as some of the tools I will be using for the build. In the mean time leave a comment if you like or ask me questions.

Bill