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!

Split Top Roubo - The Top First

When building a bench, I think most people opt to build the bottom stretcher and leg assembly first.  While that makes sense to me on one level, the sheer mass of the top made me think it would be much easier to tackle it first.  The following is the process I went through from rough to finished (mostly) top.

The first step is assessing what exactly you need to do.  With my very high tech winding sticks, I found the twist and high and lows of each timber.  These winding sticks are made from two pieces of some 1"x4" MDF I have in stock for the house trim.  Both are primer white and I ripped one down slightly and used a Sharpie on the other for contrast.  They're straight and cheap!

Next, I used a long straight edge to level four roller stands on either ends of my jointer.  I'm lucky enough to have an 83 inches in jointer table.  Having the roller stands dead on helped in taking the twist out of the timber.

Normally, if you try to joint a twisted board, you  end up following the twist as move the board across the jointer.  The sheer weight of these actually allowed me to use the weight of the timbers to establish a flat face.  I only had to push and keep the timbers in one position as I moved them across the blades.

Here are the before and after photos of one timber.  They're representative of the majority of the wood.

There are also many "defects" such as this throughout the boards.  Luckily, all the knots are nice and tight still.


Once I had a face flat, I made one of the adjacent faces square to the face.  The next step was to resaw the remaining twist out of the timbers.  I had to move my bandsaw to accommodate a 12 foot operation.

After I had the timbers resawn, I staged and numbered them for the planing operation which which would take them to a uniform size.

I, again, put infeed and outfeed rollers in place for handling these large pieces of wood.

Now that all the timbers were "roughly" finished, I could decide the sequence of boards for the top.  Taking into consideration knots, color, and material size in relation to the final project size.

At this point, I ripped some of the timbers down and then cut them to length.  One of the boards I ripped was then processed at the tablesaw with the Excalibur sliding table and a dado blade to make the square dog hole strip.

This is the glue up.  I used a paint roller and about a 1/4 gallon of glue.  A total of about 14 parallel Jet clamps, 8 Bessey F-clamps, and four cauls to help keep the pieces all lined up.

Here are two shots of the top all glued up and ready for the next step of installing the BenchCrafted tail vise and laying out for the base.

The entire build is going well.  As usual, it's taking me far longer than I anticipated.  Maybe someday, I'll either get faster or better at estimating my time.

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!

A Slight Re-design to Pay Due Respect

You may notice my blog has a little different layout.  I don't know why I hadn't already addressed this, but now is better than never.  I have been following Marc Spagnuolo for about four or five years.  I think I discovered him shortly after he entered the realm of woodworking podcasting.  The guy is simply a genius.  He is a constant student and never claims to know everything about woodworking, but he does knows a hell of a lot and he knows a hell of a lot of other great woodworkers, who know a hell of a lot.  (Could I use "a hell of a lot" anymore?)  He's accessible and his podcasts are the best on the internet and, in my opinion, the best woodworking shows period on or off the internet.  I've been a member of The WoodWhisperer Guild since it's inception and although I don't usually build along with the projects that The Guild is making, the enormous amount of information make it very well worth the money spent to become a Guild member.  Please take the time to to click the affiliate link on the right side of my page and peruse his Guild site.  If you don't know who Marc is or the online presence he has built, check out the free The WoodWhisperer offerings:  The WoodTalk Online site for a really great talk radio webcast featuring Marc, Matt Vanderlist of Matt's Basement Workshop, the Podfather of Woodworking and Shannon Rogers - The Renaissance Woodworker.  On Woodtalk Online you'll also find a new radio show featuring Marc and Matt reviewing woodworking DVDs and giving them a rating of 1 to 5 "grape sodas";  The WoodTalk Online Forum, which is the most friendly woodworking forum you will visit.  Mean spirited or overly judgmental people simply aren't welcome;  Last, but not least, is the Live Chat/Live Stream page where you can chat in real time with fellow woodworkers and usually get a glimpse into one of the many shops that stream live via Ustream, including mine.  All these sites can be reached via the main The WoodWhisperer site.


Another addition is The Hand Tool School badge.  The Hand Tool School is the brain child of Shannon Rogers, mentioned above.  The premise behind the school is to capture the apprentice experience as best we can in this cyber age.  You will learn how to use hand tools, which is an essential aspect of creating fine furniture.   While I'm what is referred to as a hybrid woodworker, which means I make furniture with both power and hand tools, all the fine tuning and fit is done with hand tools.  You simply can't set up any power tools to give you the fine fit and finish you can achieve with hand tools.  


If you love woodworking as much as I do, are a beginner or even a well skilled woodworker, you have a more available knowledge base than ever before.  Take advantage of that.  I hope to see you around the community I love so much.

Modular Sharpening Station

 YEAH!!! SPRING IS FINALLY HERE!!!  

Spring brings mixed emotions.  We had a very long winter and what has seemed to be a quite wet and extended spring has turned our very beige environment into a very green one.  Sylvia's Garden that we planted last year with a bunch of trees and a perennial wildflower mix is vibrant!  More than anything SUMMER IS ALMOST HERE!!  Our summers here are great.  The days are hot and the evenings are perfect for hanging out on the patio and taking evening swims.  The flip side of that is I don't get into the shop nearly as much as I'd like, due to spring wake up and weekly maintenance chores.


Here and there, I've managed to get into the shop and my latest project has been to install my deep sink and small hot water tank.  

This, of course, facilitated a great place to have a sharpening station.

To design this station, I took a few things into consideration.  First, I wanted it to be modular to enable full access to the water tank for maintenance flushing and the sewer clean-out in case I ever need access to that.  Second, I wanted this station to house all my sharpening arsenal, except the variable speed grinder, which will mount around the corner.  Finally, I wanted a no mess solution to my water stone sharpening regimen.

The first thing I did was build the base, 

then the cabinet to house my sharpening tools and supplies.  The drawers come later.

Next up was the sharpening basin.  A buddy had an off-cut piece of Corian he let me have.  I was originally going to use it for the top of my upcoming router table, but I really liked the idea of using it here as it is impervious to water.  The first thing I did was create a sub-base that I could more easily create the actual basin in.  This was made 1/2" plywood for the bottom and 3/4" for the sides.  For proper drainage I needed to create slope.  To do this I split the bottom of the basin.  So, I cut the plywood bottom and then created a deep kerf to allow it to bend.  I also added a small strip of 1/8" plywood on the left and front side, then added the 3/4" sides.  Now, I was ready to start cutting the Corian basin.  The first piece to fit was the thin strip shown here.

Next I cut and fit the remaining pieces and glued them up.  I used epoxy for a watertight seal and torqued the basin as much as I could without breaking it to allow the slope I wanted.

After the glue up I tested it for leaks and proper drainage.  

  

I also cut an other piece of Corian to be the dam for the basin.  That didn't quite work, as you can see in this shot.  It was a slow leak, but I'm kinda OCD and it wasn't good enough. 

Next up, stone holders.  For cutting these little pieces I pulled out my crosscut sled.  It was the only solution I could think of that I felt was a safe option for cutting these.

Then over to the basin to position and mark everything out for glue up. 

I used a file to round over the edges of the blocks, so they were less prone to chip in use.

I used pure silicone sealant to adhere the blocks into place.  I preferred this over epoxy to allow me to remove them in the future if I get new water stones and they don't quite fit.

When I test the basin earlier for leaks and drainage, I noticed surface tension was making the water curl back around the end of the drain and get the wood wet.  The solution to this was gluing on a little off-cut piece I still had. 

 Before I said the dam I'd made of Corian wasn't quite cutting it.  I scoured the shop and found an old foam rubber sanding block I never use and this worked perfectly.

 Here is the final product and everything in it's place!

I know it's not pretty.  It is, however, functional and it's just shop furniture.  I think the only two nice pieces I will ever build for the shop are going to be my hand tool bench and my hand tool cabinet.  Those two objects deserve a little more love and attention.  The rest only needs to be utilitarian.


Thanks for stopping by.  I hope this has been helpful.