Number 9, Number 9, Number 9...Everyone must build Roubo

If you've been paying attention and you know the bloggers I do, you know that for one reason or another workbenches are "it" right now.  Kari Hultman of the Village Carpenter has started her version of the Andres Roubo workbench.  Erik Gilling of Better Living Through Woodworking and Chris Adkins of High Rock Woodworking are just two off the top of my head that are building along with me and we're building along with The Woodwhisperer Guild, headed by yet another bench builder and entrepreneur, Marc Spagnuolo.  It seems everyone is taking slightly different approaches to the bench, but the one thing they all have in common is they are the Roubo workbench that Chris Schwarz popularized in the woodworking community with his books on workbenches.  Be sure to check out their blogs, you can even view Marc's progress on his woodworking blog that is housed on his free site The Woodwhisperer.

This last week I finally got back into the shop.  I'm now in the process of building the parts and assembling the Benchcrafted leg vise.  The first step was after I finished fitting the glide to the roughed out chop, was to figure out the location of the of the hole for the vise's screw and the mortise for the guide rail.  I just clamped everything in place, leaving about 1/16" on the top of the chop that I will flush after the complete install.

I transferred all the marks to the chop and drilled for the screw.








For the glide mortise, I started by using my Triton router with an edge guide to make  the initial slots on either side of the leg.  I drilled the waste between the two slots with my drill press and cleaned everything up with my chisels.



After checking alignment, I drilled the hole through the leg for the screw and laid out the design on the chop, which is a continuation of the design used for the glide.  The design is based on the chevron design found in the art deco style.  You can barely see it laid in this picture of the chop.

The wheel and screw are actually fastened to the chop with machine screws and required tapping.  Luckily, my Grandpa had given me his tap and die set.  It was nice to finally be able to use it.

I mounted the hand wheel and tested the clearance of the glide in the glide mortise.  After that, I cut out the design for the chop and cleaned it up with my chisels.  My chisel of choice is my 2".  It's probably the most used blade in my shop.  The weight and size make it very easy to yield for many operations.  

I made some 3/8" dowels on my Woodrat from the Osage Orange, drilled the holes to pin the glide and drove the dowels home.  Since Orange Osage is so hard, it should do well as a pin for this purpose.

Late last night I posed the question to my social media friends, should I inlay this nut or not?  Was there any reason I should other than that seems to be the thing to do. The overwhelming response was to do the inlay, but no particular reasons why it may be better to do so, in terms of integrity.  I decided to go ahead and do the inlay, thinking that besides being slightly better looking, it would put less stress on the machine threads that are only holding in Fir, which is considered a softwood.  Today, Marc Spagnuolo saw that I had decided to do the inlay and concurred on the possibility of this being slightly better in terms of strength.

The operation was again at the drill press using my large diameter forstner bit to hog the majority of the waste from the recess.  I cleaned the perimeter with a chisel and got to the final depth and a clean bottom with my router plane.  Here is the nut after the inlay process.  

This morning while I drank my coffee, I decided to do some detail work on the chop and glide.  The glide "stub" sits proud and rather than cutting it off flush to the surface, I decided to facet it, as well as cleaning up the final edges of the chop.  This is a detail I later found will need to be changed.


The last thing I did today was start to rough out the glide wheel brackets.  Once I get these done, I can finally glue up the base and set the tops on!

I'm pretty close to wrapping this project.  I still have dogs to make and the lower shelf.

The Woodwhisper Guild Roubo Build-Part 4

The last two evenings I haven't had any time in the shop, except to clean up a bit.  But, this weekend, which started on Friday, I awoke to a damp and frosty morning.  It was the perfect start to a blissful weekend in the shop.

The first thing I worked on was the finishing touches on the mortise and tenon for the end cap.  This was the second tenon I've cut.  The first was at WIA '11, where I was fortunate enough to have Adam Cherubini give me some one on one instruction on sawing.

For my second tenon and a monster tenon at that, I did pretty darned good with my new Bad Axe Beastmaster and Wyatt Earp saws.  The tenon required very little work to fit just right into the mortise.





The fit was just about perfect.  I left the cap a little proud on both sides to allow me to flush it up after I've got everything together.

Next, I went back and poured over the PDF from Benchcrafted and the Sketch Up plan that  Aaron Marshall has put together for the The Woodwhisperer Guild before I started drilling holes to both attach the end cap to the top and the ones needed for the tail vise.




The Benchcrafted instruction are VERY clear that a perfect fit is essential for flawless operation.




Next up was the part I was dreading the most.  I really hate dust and have tried to design excellent dust collection through out the shop.  The one weak area is any hand held routing operations.  On the next post I'll review the Triton router I bought in response to the mess made when I routed the channel for the tail vise screw.

The initial fit looks very good.  I think it will be dead on!

For the next exercise I got to put my sharpening station to good use.  I drilled the holes for the bolts that attach the cap to the bench and drilled and chiseled out the holes to capture the nuts.

You can see in this photo how hard the winter growth rings are in this Fir.  After talking to Shannon, who is my Hand Tool School teacher, I'm increasing the angle of my bench chisels from 20 degrees to 25 and adding a steeper micro-bevel.

In the midst of all this, I managed to mill up my legs, deadman, and leg vise boards.  I'm going thicker on the legs than in the plan.  Mine are 5 3/8" x 4 1/4".

Hopefully, this weekend I'll finish up the top and move on to the base!

Cleaning Timbers and an Early Christmas!

I know, it's way too early for talk of Christmas, but people are gearing up and I'm especially filled with holiday cheer.  Santa Claus must think I'm a very good boy, because he's recently sent me two very excellent Christmas gifts.  I've received my Bad Axe saws from Mark Harrell.

Meet Doc, Wyatt and The BeastMaster!  The beautifully handcrafted saws are exquisite.  I had mine made with Cherry handles and stainless steel backs and split nuts.  I can't wait until I get to play with my new little friends!

 And today, my Benchcrafted hardware for my
Roubo bench arrived.  The entire kit includes the leg vise and wagon vise hardware, along with extremely beefy bolts for the the bench stretchers. Those will allow me to adjust for seasonal movement, or if Sylvia ever decides I'm too damn expensive, she can take the bench apart and sell it after she's gotten rid of me.  Remind me to make sure she stays happy!!!

The timbers are almost all cleaned up and I wanted to get you caught up.  I brought over nearly 380 board feet of the reclaimed barn timbers, which is nearly three times the amount actually needed for the build.  The reason for this is that it is a bit rough in places and without being able to see the wood, I really don't know how I am going to choose which timber becomes which piece of the build.


This is a shot of the board I'm cleaning right now.  This is the last board that needed cleaning before I start laying out the pieces and start the rough dimensioning.

These are the tools I used for the surgical removal of all the errant nails.  Pictured is the Wizard metal detector, gloves and ear muffs, dead blow hammer and chisel, small nail puller, cats paw, side cutters and a dental pick.
I used the Wizard to find the nails and marked each with chalk, then went back over each and used whichever tool suited the situation best to get the metal out of the board.



As you can see I had to excavate to get to the nails that had broken at the surface and rusted inward.

This final shot is how I set up the belt sander to remove the old age, grit and god knows what from the surface prior to subjecting any edge tools to these boards.   The next step is selecting the parts from the oversized pile of lumber and start the rough dimensioning.

I HATE DUST.  As you can see the floor is covered in sawdust and chips from the chiseling, but nothing got airborne.  I've still got to figure out a better solution for my router operations.

Here's to Another Hundred Years

 Finally, summer is gone, my winterizing chores are done and I get to build something.  First up, I'm going to be building a Roubo Split Top Bench from the BenchCrafted plans via The Woodwhisperer Guild winter build.  I have some phenomenal hardware on the way, also from BenchCrafted.  Today, I went over to the warehouse and brought home some very old friends.  

These old joists and timber frame members were bought over 15 years ago from a guy that had already been storing them for about twenty years.  They were taken during a deconstruction of a 100 plus year old barn in eastern Oregon.  I'm thinking they might be dry enough to work already.  As you can see, old growth red fir has some very tight growth rings!  I can't wait to clean these ladies up!!

Stay tuned for updates!!  THIS is gonna be fun!