I started buying lumber for a Roubo bench over a year ago. A friend at a cabinet shop helped me flatten the southern yellow pine boards with his thickness sander (thanks, Phil!), and I started assembling the bench in my garage last summer. I continued through the fall, mostly a few hours at a time on weekends (with occasional pauses while I worked up the courage to tackle difficult parts of the build), and completed the basic bench this past winter. I installed a quick-release vise a few weeks ago to use as a tail vise, and finished up some more details this weekend. I think I can finally declare my Roubo bench finished.
If you’re family with Christopher Schwarz’s Roubo bench, mine is very similar (I’m still a beginning woodworker, so I didn’t feel confident deviating much from his design). Building this bench was a great learning experience—in fact, many steps in the process (such as chopping mortises and using a router) were “first times” for me. I still consider myself a beginner, but I know a lot more about woodworking than I did before I started.
Here are a few pictures:
The leg vise is made from maple, and the shelf in the base is ash. The leg vise screw is from Veritas and the quick-release vise is by Jorgensen. The holdfasts are from Gramercy Tools. I’m very happy with the materials and couldn’t be more pleased with the results.
That is on heck of a nice bench. Even for a more experienced woodworker. The patience and persistence paid off. Now… Will the wife allow it in the house?
-- Hi. My name is bucket head and I'm a recovering framing carpenter.
Nicely done, beautiful bench. You might want to also put your photos and comments into the long-running “Work bench smack down” thread: http://lumberjocks.com/topics/31539
-- Perfection is the difference between too much and not enough.
Beginner my foot! That is one great lookin’ bench. Now, all ya have to do is to convince yourself to use it. Whispering in your ear: It’s gonna git roughed up if it is used. Well done sir. Bill
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