Project Information
This is my Benchcrafted-inspired split-top Roubo workbench. Eight feet long, 29" wide, 35" tall, and weighs about 300 pounds. Includes a leg vise, tail vise, and sliding deadman, and was built over six months. Primarily constructed of Burrill fir 2×4s from Home Depot, but also birch, white oak, red oak, cherry, soft maple, hard maple, walnut, makore, and sapele. The vises are built with Lee Valley tail vise screws, and Benchcrafted's crisscross keeps the leg vise parallel.
I'm primarily a hand tool woodworker and prior to this worked on a small old dining table that is bowed, unstable, and lightweight. I also have a wall-mounted work area that is flat and reasonably stable however it's 39" tall. Working on this bench with two awesome vises has been an amazing change. I've said it before, but I find the adage "it's a poor carpenter who blames his tools" to be very false-this bench has made me a better woodworker both because of the skill I developed in building it and because it's the right tool for the job.
I blogged the build, where there's a lot more detail:
I'm primarily a hand tool woodworker and prior to this worked on a small old dining table that is bowed, unstable, and lightweight. I also have a wall-mounted work area that is flat and reasonably stable however it's 39" tall. Working on this bench with two awesome vises has been an amazing change. I've said it before, but I find the adage "it's a poor carpenter who blames his tools" to be very false-this bench has made me a better woodworker both because of the skill I developed in building it and because it's the right tool for the job.
I blogged the build, where there's a lot more detail:
- Workbench #1: Getting ready to build my first workbench
- Workbench #2: Wood selected
- Workbench #3: Sorting the wood
- Workbench #4: I cheated
- Workbench #5: The Rear Top
- Workbench #6: The Front Top
- Workbench #7: Installing the Tail Vise
- Workbench #8: Base Progress
- Workbench #9: Time for a break
- Workbench #10: Leg vise
- Workbench #11: Assembling the Base
- Workbench #12: Adding the Shelf
- Workbench #13: The Gapstop
- Workbench #14: The Sliding Deadman
- Workbench #15: Odds and Ends
- Workbench #16: Done Enough