| Blog series by WheelsAF | updated 374 days ago | 4 parts | 4654 reads | 12 comments total |
Part 1: Prepping the lumber
Like many weekend woodworkers I made due for years with half-baked workbenches. A few years back I saw the Roubo design and knew I would build it one day. That day has come. I am a retired AF officer (well…retired from the AF not from working :)) who has decided to get serious about my hobby. The furniture we have been dragging around the country and world could really use replacing. So I need a serious bench to help. A little explanation of my title: I call it a “Super Gl...
Part 2: Prepping the bench top timbers
After all of that routing (having not been able to use a jointer or planer) I did get to use a huge power sander to remove all the tool marks and achieve a great surface for glueing. Because of the way the router jig works, I was able to shim and level the timbers before flattening each of the faces. This means I ended up with pretty square stock. I decided to make my bench top removable since we are likely going to be moving around for my work. So, my original thought was to use mortis...
Part 3: Cutting the leg tenons and gluing up the top
Cutting the tenons on the legs. I was really impressed with how well my new Japanese-style pull saw worked. I have never used this type of saw before and it tracked very well once you had an accurate kerf to guide it. Here is one half done. I then used a chisel and a block plane to clean everything up. You will notice that even on the beveled sides of the tenon I left a little ledge just to ensure the top wouldn’t slide up the tenon if pushed upon…like from the leg vise...
Part 4: Wagon Vise w/ drawer glides
Here is my wagon vise. It is pretty standard in that I used a Lee-Nielsen vise screw. The innovative part is using 8” full-extension drawer glides to ensure smooth travel. Here is an over all look from the bottom of the bench with the chop not yet installed. You can see I used some spacers between the chop and the drawer glide; I did this in the hope that I can keep some of the debris from interferring with the glide mechanism. You can see that I set up the wagon vise opening in...
