Roubo Bench - Getting the base ready

Well its time for me to get all of the mortise and tenons ready for the base. First I had a few holes that I wanted to drill in the legs for hold downs ( actually for holding up). My drill press wouldn’t go all of the way through the legs so I finished the holes with a bit brace and a 3/4” auger bit checking for when the point came through. Then I flipped the leg and finished them.

I wanted to get my strecher length right on, so I took my measurement right off the legs.

I layed out my tenon shoulders and got out my tenon saw to cut them.

Sorry I got all interested in fitting all those tenons and didn’t get any pictures of the process. I did get some shop help though and I put my daughter to work champferring the bottoms of the legs. The theory is that there won’t be any chips on one side of the legs when you move it. I had to see how much this thing is going to weigh so I brought the bathroom scale down and weighed the parts. The base is 110 lbs. and the top is too heavy to fit on the scale at this point. I don’t think it’ll move but had the helper use a chisel

and then a plane to put a 45 degree edge on the bottom of the legs.

Next up was to rout the groove for the deadman in the underside of the bench. I made several passes.

Gradully lowering the bit until I had a 3/4” wide groove that’s 1 1/8” deep. I think that will be fine for the deadman to fit into securely.

When I was done, I squared up the corners. I thought about leaving them alone, but I like square corners.

I figured since the base wasn’t assembled yet, I should put the flange for the leg vise on now while it could lay flat, saving me from crawling under the bench to install it later.

Now it’s time to drill some holes. I plan on pegging/drawboring this all together so layed out my locations and drilled my holes with a backer board to prevent blow out on the inside of my mortises. The small square in my hand is helping me drill straight in the vertical axis, I can see the bit fine to keep the horizontal axis square.

Then I finished the holes on the other side of the mortise.

Then I slipped the tenon piece, in the picture it’s the leg, into place and marked the hole center with the tip of the bit.

Next is to slightly offset the tenon hole TOWARDS the shoulder (I was worried that I ‘d go the wrong way so I kept yelling this to myself, thankfully no problems).

Just drill a straight hole and I’ve got it licked.

You know the saying about round holes and square pegs, and I’ve driven square pegs into round holes before (FYI the square edges just cut the surface and you end up with a square looking peg) but I wanted to give the pegs a little help.

Well that’s alot of work for me to get done. Cutting and fitting 8 tenons and getting all the little things ready so I can assemble the base. I think this bench is about to make a whole lot of progress. I have it in my head that I should be able to use it in two weeks. We’ll see if that’s true.

-- Every cloud has a silver lining