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