# Roubo-ish Workbench Build



## BikerDad (Jul 16, 2008)

*Catching up, or "where we're at now."*

Yes, another workbench build blog series. Not exactly a novel topic, and I will strive to keep the series to less than novel length as well. Of course, given how long this build has been simmering, if I posted on it once a week, it would be closing on Russian novel length.

So, some quick background. I've been working wood for about 15 years now, not that my output would give much hint of that. Still, I have graduated from using a Black & Decker Workmate (a wondrous, underrated device) to the second iteration of a proper workbench. The first iteration was a 36" x 80" solid core door on top of a base from Sam Allen's Making Workbenches The door was skinned with Masonite tacked down with brads, and had both dogholes and a proper English Record 7" QR face vise. Unfortunately, there was too much unsupported overhang on one end, which resulted in some permanent droop when a friend who was helping me hang lights in my shop stood out there. A few years after building that bench, I moved, and as part of the moving process I tossed the solid core door top.

The second iteration of the bench is what I'm using now. I bought a Jorgensen maple top, 6'x25". I mounted the Record vise to it, put a bunch of dogholes in it, and plopped it onto the Sam Allen base. The bench has been doing yeoman duty for almost a decade. Actually, it's spent a LOT of time in storage during that time.

So, if this bench has been doing a decent job, why am I building a new one? Glad you asked…

My current bench has some shortcomings. First and foremost is that the effective thickness of the top is not consistent. There are top rails between all the legs, meaning that there's a nasty void behind the rails that makes deep clamping a pain. Second, there is an inch of overhang on the back. I could make new front-to-back rails to widen the base, but that does nothing to solve Problem #1. Third, no tail vise. While I can certainly endorse the wondrous qualities of the Veritas Wonder Pups, the Wonder Pup still has a minimum height, which restricts the thickness of wood one work using the W'Pup without undertaking a bunch of complicated, and shifty, spacing.

The new bench is going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 9+ feet long, depending on how much effective length I can get out of my stock. The width will be 24"-28" or so, again, dependent on stock. There's a second factor at play on the width, namely how much hand work I want to do. My planers (I currently have 3!!!!) are 12", 12.5" and 13", so slabs over 13" will have to be subjected to hand processing. I'm aiming for a final thickness of 4.5" for the top, and will be putting a bottom shelf, possibly with a special feature, into the unit. The base will be sized to fit the top, with overhang for a Benchcrafted Wagon Vise on the right end, and some overhang on the left end as well. In addition to the BC Wagon Vise, the bench is going to have a BC Criss-Cross Leg Vise. I'd love to go with the latest generation, but such is not in the cards at the moment. I will be adding a deadman, and will almost certainly use a combination of square dogs and round dogs. Perhaps someday I'll do a stop motion video of a battle between the two packs of dogs, and settle forever the argument of which is better.

The base is soft maple, the top is hard maple. I may do some accents and such with either Jatoba or Purpleheart, since I have some of both on hand.

I've had everything on hand for the bench for quite some time, except for some poplar for the bottom shelf. The wood is thoroughly seasoned, and I've started milling it. All the main structural components of the base have been milled up, and today I started milling the timbers for the top.

That's it for now, I'll try to include some pic next update.


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## LJackson (Jan 13, 2014)

BikerDad said:


> *Catching up, or "where we're at now."*
> 
> Yes, another workbench build blog series. Not exactly a novel topic, and I will strive to keep the series to less than novel length as well. Of course, given how long this build has been simmering, if I posted on it once a week, it would be closing on Russian novel length.
> 
> ...


Forget the bench, I want to see the stop-motion video of the round vs. square dogs! That sound like hilarity.

I'm making an 8'x3' bench out of 2×4s. I fear the top will be really ugly. I have some maple that I may put over the pine if it is too bad.


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## BikerDad (Jul 16, 2008)

*Gorilla Glue, or more accurately, grrrrrrrrrrrr glue.*

Today, I spent some more time working on the timbers for the top. The top will be about 27" wide, laminated from 18 segments of 8/4 hard maple. Actually, its going to be more than 18, because I only was able to get 14 width pieces (@ 5" wide) from my stock, and I'm gluing the remaining four segments up from the ripping leftovers from the 14. That means one 3 piece glue up, and 3 2 piece glue ups. I got through all three of the two piece glue-ups today, the first two I did using Titebond II, the last I did using Gorilla Glue. Since I haven't done any large glue-ups using yellow glue in a few years, I ended up using a fair bit more than necessary, but still used a lot more than I would have expected. The glue ups are on edge, 9+ feet long and close to two inches thick, 5" wide. 15 clamps on each one.

While it was overly messy, the yellow glue process went much easier than the polyurethane, although I suspect the poly squeeze out will be a lot simpler to fix. Why, you may wonder, did the yellow glue process go easier? Because poly glue has the consistency of cold honey. It is a royal pain to squeeze out of the bottle, and more troublesome to spread. Why is it so blasted thick??

Tomorrow, actually, it is tomorrow now, but after I get up in the morning, I'll glue up the last segment, then I'll start cleaning up the face jointed surface of the 14, thickness all of them, face joint the 4 glued up timbers, thickness them, and start the big laminations. In truth, I don't expect to actually get started on the big laminations tomorrow, but optimism never hurt.

Here a pic of one of today's glue-ups on my existing bench.


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## MadJester (Sep 30, 2011)

BikerDad said:


> *Gorilla Glue, or more accurately, grrrrrrrrrrrr glue.*
> 
> Today, I spent some more time working on the timbers for the top. The top will be about 27" wide, laminated from 18 segments of 8/4 hard maple. Actually, its going to be more than 18, because I only was able to get 14 width pieces (@ 5" wide) from my stock, and I'm gluing the remaining four segments up from the ripping leftovers from the 14. That means one 3 piece glue up, and 3 2 piece glue ups. I got through all three of the two piece glue-ups today, the first two I did using Titebond II, the last I did using Gorilla Glue. Since I haven't done any large glue-ups using yellow glue in a few years, I ended up using a fair bit more than necessary, but still used a lot more than I would have expected. The glue ups are on edge, 9+ feet long and close to two inches thick, 5" wide. 15 clamps on each one.
> 
> ...


I've always noticed that the clean up on yellow glue is easier when it's still wet…you can either wipe with a damp rag or wait just a bit and scrape off before it sets completely…with the Gorilla glue, you definitely have to wait for it to dry…but it does pop off pretty easy once it's dry…a little scraper, chisel or for small drips, just a little razor knife…I have the same issue with getting it out of the bottle…and the older it is, the harder it is to squeeze…..I've actually switched to buying the smaller sized container…if even the smallest bit of moisture gets into the larger size, it starts to 'cook up'.....and then I end up wasting most of it…..hope the bench build comes out awesome!


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## Duckster (Sep 14, 2014)

BikerDad said:


> *Gorilla Glue, or more accurately, grrrrrrrrrrrr glue.*
> 
> Today, I spent some more time working on the timbers for the top. The top will be about 27" wide, laminated from 18 segments of 8/4 hard maple. Actually, its going to be more than 18, because I only was able to get 14 width pieces (@ 5" wide) from my stock, and I'm gluing the remaining four segments up from the ripping leftovers from the 14. That means one 3 piece glue up, and 3 2 piece glue ups. I got through all three of the two piece glue-ups today, the first two I did using Titebond II, the last I did using Gorilla Glue. Since I haven't done any large glue-ups using yellow glue in a few years, I ended up using a fair bit more than necessary, but still used a lot more than I would have expected. The glue ups are on edge, 9+ feet long and close to two inches thick, 5" wide. 15 clamps on each one.
> 
> ...


I am planning on starting a table soon for my shop. I still don't know where to start, but looking. Looks like you have made a great start


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## BikerDad (Jul 16, 2008)

*Bump in the build, or how a crappy mobile base can bring an Italian Stallion to a halt...*

So, I've managed to get everything face jointed and the first of the big lamination done. I've decided I'm going to go with 8 segments in each half, at least for the moment. The first big lamination was 4 segments, and I had intended to do 3 more 4 segment laminations. That plan has changed though, for two reasons. First, getting all four segments to align turned out to be more trouble than expected. Second, too messy. I'm going to do them in pairs, then glue the pairs up in pairs, then I'll have 4 segment chunks, which I'll glue together. Once I have all 4 segment chunks, I'll decide what's next.

Unfortunately, as this blog title indicates, I've encountered a bump in the road. During the 4 segment glue-up that I did Wednesday, I discovered that the last timber I had edge jointed, which was done separately from all the others, was nowhere near straight. Anybody with knowledge of how fine a machine a Minimax FS30 is would likely conclude that the problem was operator error, and they would be correct. Sort of. The error though wasn't any of the normal errors one sees when jointing. Nope, this was a new one.

The problem is that my mobile base flexes. Badly. I had to move the beast around some in order to use it in planing mode, and then move it back to joint the one timber that had escaped edge jointing the first time around. When I got it repositioned for edge jointing, the swivel wheels weren't in the same orientation as last time. This meant that the jointer would rock slightly fore and aft. When I passed the timber over the jointer, it rocked nose down enough that the timber would no longer clear the outfeed support. Rather than stopping, I put a bunch of weight on the tail of the jointer, enough to lift the nose and timber and clear the outfeed support. Once clear, I resumed the normal jointing, with now obvious but not surprising results. The jointer rocked back nose down, and voila, say goodbye to my straight edge. First pic below is one end, middle pic is the middle, and the last pic is the other end of the 4 segment chunk. Notice how dreadfully offset the top segment is in both the first and last pic. There was no joy in Mudville when I saw that…. none at all.



























As a result, I've spent the last two days sorting out how I'm going to fix my mobile base problem. I've gathered the materials, looked at a bunch of mobile bases online, watched some mobile base videos, and developed a half-assed plan. Even the half-assed plan faced a major challenge, namely, 540 pounds of Italian iron, copper, steel and assorted other materials. Getting the J/P out of it's existing mobile base and onto a new one isn't something I was looking forward to. I mulled over a variety of methods using levers and blocking, but none of the options open to me working by myself looked to be doable without an unacceptable risk of injury or damage. I'll post pics tomorrow of the solution I've come up with, hopefully along with pics of Uncle Max (my nickname for the J/P) on zooming around the shop on his new wheels.


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## NormG (Mar 5, 2010)

BikerDad said:


> *Bump in the build, or how a crappy mobile base can bring an Italian Stallion to a halt...*
> 
> So, I've managed to get everything face jointed and the first of the big lamination done. I've decided I'm going to go with 8 segments in each half, at least for the moment. The first big lamination was 4 segments, and I had intended to do 3 more 4 segment laminations. That plan has changed though, for two reasons. First, getting all four segments to align turned out to be more trouble than expected. Second, too messy. I'm going to do them in pairs, then glue the pairs up in pairs, then I'll have 4 segment chunks, which I'll glue together. Once I have all 4 segment chunks, I'll decide what's next.
> 
> ...


Heart breaking to say the least, let us know how it is resolved


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## BikerDad (Jul 16, 2008)

*Hangin' with Uncle Max*

Today was a semi-productive day. I got two 2 timber segments glued up, and got Uncle Max off/out of the crappy mobile base. That took a bit longer than I expected, as I had to go forth and get some more hardware for the task. The trip forth ended up including dinner, and a stop at Lowe's for some other hardware for the base, which I ended up not getting as a different approach came to mind.

Pictured below is the tool I used for moving Uncle Max off the lousy base. It is heavily stressed in this pic.










Having proven that the hoist can hoist, I lowered the maple shavings, maneuvered the hoist into the shop, and got to this point - Uncle Max hanging out.










Now, Uncle Max is back on Terra Firma, and in the morning I'll be continuing the adventures of building a mobile base for Uncle Max and building my new bench.


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## BikerDad (Jul 16, 2008)

*Where's the onion dip, I've got bags and bags of chips...*

I'mmmmmm back! I kinda got derailed over the last two weeks. Between trouble with trying to get a mobile base built for Uncle Max (my jointer/planer), job search & interviews, and wasting time, I didn't get much accomplished until last night, when I glued up two more pairs of timbers. Today, I got down to some serious milling. 1 1/2 bags of chips later, I'm ready for the final glue ups for the slabs. Well, milling wise I am. I've still got to lop some length off the timbers, which is going to b an adventure itself, as I've got to come up with a good method of supporting 10'x4.5' x 3.75" hard maple on my CMS when I'm only trimming the ends. 9' of those timbers hanging off one end will be interesting.

All that said, I have learned a lesson today, and it is one I'd like to share with y'all.

MILL EACH TIMBER close to final dimensions separately. While it will mean more trips back and forth, each trip will be much, much easier than it is when trying to muscle around a lamination of four timbers.

Tomorrow, I hope to get the rear slab glued up, and the final two chunks of the front slab glued up. I'll probably take some progress pics as well.


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## BikerDad (Jul 16, 2008)

*Working on some Popeye arms here...*



















So, the pictures above are the two slabs. The larger slab is at the back, on edge. It will be the front slab, and is actually still going to get two more timbers added to it, a dog strip and the face strip. The slab in the clamps is the back slab. Rather than going with a "normal" split top design, this one is using asymmetrical slabs. The front slab is going to be about 16" wide, while the rear slab is a bit over 11" wide.

Both slabs are out of their clamps, and I've been flattening the bottoms, hence the Popeye arms. Unfortunately, I don't have either the optimum plane herd, much less optimum plane wielding skills. I've gotten good use out of my Veritas LA jack, and my Lie-Nielsen Scrub plane, as well as a vintage Dunlap junior jack. The Veritas LA jack is great, but the blade has no camber. The Scrub is good, but it lacks an adjustable mouth and chip breaker, so it can be too aggressive. The junior jack is almost my favorite for this, except the blasted handle is loose and swivels, and I can't tighten down any more. grrrr….

I'm seriously considering getting a premium BU jack plane, putting a mild camber on the blade, and using it to finish up the bottom flattening. Why premium? Because I'd rather not screw around with fettling a vintage plane, nor replacing the blade and chipbreaker. Of course, I may not wait and finish up the flattening without getting a new plane.

Once I'm done with the bottoms, it's on to the tops, and I'm torn on how I'm going to do it. My arms want me to find some time with a wide belt sander, but my romantic half wants to do it all by hand. If I were 100% confident that I could keep the thickness consistent, the wide belt sander would be running as a distant option.


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## Tugboater78 (May 26, 2012)

BikerDad said:


> *Working on some Popeye arms here...*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Looking good, I am im a similar stage on my bench, but I am lucky enough to have the plane arsenal. If your handle is broke, perhaps many on here have one they could send you. I may even have one, I would have to look, I assume it shares a tote configuration with a #5 size.


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## djang000 (Jul 24, 2012)

BikerDad said:


> *Working on some Popeye arms here...*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm at that stage too. I bought a second iron from LV and put a good camber on it and use my jack as a scrub with good success so far. Much cheaper. Personally, it's a #8 I would like to add to my arsenal… 

sam


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## benchbuilder (Sep 10, 2011)

BikerDad said:


> *Working on some Popeye arms here...*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hey bikerdad, you have a lot ot time money and hard work in that bench so far so why messup the top side of the top with planes that just dont fit the job. Buy off ebay a #5 or #6 and put a nice usable shape and edge on it. You will get much better results and be much happier. Yes it takes a few mins to work the blade into shape, but you dont have to rebuild the whole plane. Why live with tearouts when a bit of effort on the easier side will prevent most or all of it. Just my thoughts, and the money you will save will buy some really nice wood for a leg vise. Good luck!!


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## BikerDad (Jul 16, 2008)

*New Year, same old slow...*

So it seems like it's been quite a while since I've posted. I have gotten some more progress on the bench, but not nearly as much as I'd like, nor nearly as much as I've had the opportunity to accomplish.

I got the slabs out of the clamps, and finished flattening the bottoms using my existing arsenal. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, my sons were all here, so I found a cabinet shop that would run my slabs through a drum sander. We loaded the slabs into my truck and trundled over there. Once there, we found that the wide slab would just make it through his planer, so we ran both slabs through the planer rather than sander. While there, I also got a look at one of the SawStop Jobsite Saws. Yes, before they were even officially announced. Good looking little guy, Sawstop is going to sell boatloads of 'em to commercial operations simply because of the insurance.

Work on the bench slowed down substantially between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Okay, slowed down isn't quite the right term. Stopped is more accurate. I did get some other stuff done in the shop during that time, but no bench work. I had from Christmas to New Years Day off, so I set my sights on getting the bench finished. Fortunately, I wasn't shooting for qualification, because I came nowhere near my mark.

Part of the problem has been weather. We had snow (finally) hit, and hit heavy, on Christmas. My shop is overcrowded currently, so I have to move some tools outside in order to work. Outside doesn't work when temps are below freezing and the driveway is snow covered. That, however, is actually a smaller part.

A larger issue is my decision to go as long as possible with the bench given my timbers. Between that, and squeezing as much width out of my top lamination pieces, ALL of my stretchers are too short. So I had to spend some time cutting and milling up new stretchers. But wait, there's more!! Sadly, the big printed plans I have from Benchcrafted don't match my hardware. I have a Glide CrissCross, not the traditional Glide. Now, this isn't really Benchcrafted's fault, as the instructions for the CrissCross do make it clear that the leg vise chop and lower front stretcher are different from the printed bench plans, but if you don't READ all the instructions before hand, such nuances can escape one. So, I ended up cutting pieces for the vise chop that are too short, and will have to laminate a thicker front stretcher.

The adventures in stretchers aside, I have made some other progress. The cavity for the wagon vise has been excavated, a very messy process using my router. The tenon for the endcap has been mostly cut, I just have to trim one end. And my blank for the endcap is glued up and ready for cutting the mortise as well as the rest of the wagon vise installation work.

So there's still a LOT of work to do. I plan on getting all the wagon vise/endcap work done next, as well as getting that front stretcher glued up. Once the wagon vise work is done, I'll do the doghole strip, front lamination and condor tails. At that point, the top will be finished except for final trimming, which will be left for last. With the major work on the top done, I'll start in on the base joinery and leg vise. I'll need to glue up a blank for the chop. Any of these glueups are a pain, because I have to bring the pieces inside overnight because my garage is too cold. I'm not looking forward to the final front slab glueup…

Well, that's it for now. Sorry, no pics, but I'll get some for the next update.


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## BikerDad (Jul 16, 2008)

*Prepping for Takeoff*

More progress has been slowly taking place on my Roubo. Because the endcap tenon was just a bit long, and my pattern bit was maxed out for depth, I went to town chopping the mortise a bit deeper by hand. It looks ugly, but it's the bottom of a mortise, which is now deep enough.

The next step was to drill the holes for the barrel nuts and bolts for attaching the endcap. So, I read the instructions, and based on them I find that, oh noes, I don't have a 1" Forstner bit. I secure one, along with a LONG 1/2" twist bit (I'll need that later for the stretchers), and set to drilling the endcap. I drill both endcap counterbores, then drill the first bolt hole. Ahhhhhnd then I notice that the Endcap hardware is *not* the same size as the stretcher hardware. Grrrrrrr… it would be nice if the instructions had pointed that out. Fortunately, I had not yet drilled the holes for the barrel bolts. Holes which require a 7/8" bit. Yet another Forstner bit I don't have. Project stalls….

This past weekend, I picked up the 16 piece Forstner bit set that Woodcraft has on sale. Why? Because I'm sick of getting caught out without a bit. Normally, I buy Freud carbide Forstners, but I figure I'll use these Woodcraft bits when I don't have a carbide bit, and when I use one enough that I have to sharpen it, I'll upgrade that size to a carbide bit. Anyhow, last night, just before going to bed, I used the handy dandy new Forstner bit, along with a spade bit, and drilled the first barrel nut hole.

Moment of truth. SUCCESS. The bolt hole intersects nicely with the barrel nut hole. Triumphant, I drill the other bolt and barrel nut hole, again finding SUCCESS. Doubly successful, I call it a night.

Today, I tackled one of the most intimidating (for me) tasks on this build so far. The Condor Tail. I had previously made the jig, using a 1:8 slope, per Jameel Abraham's instructions. This was actually my third attempt, the first two having failed due to 1) crappy blade that drifted more than Ken Block, and then after solving that, the lack of fence on my bandsaw. So, having put a Timberwolf 1/2" blade on, and adding a Kreg Fence, I was ready. I first did a test set, using a cutoff from the front lamination piece. Worked quite nicely.

Yet… when I went to make the actual cut, I ran into some complications. Specifically, it's a lot easier to make the cuts on a piece that's about 9" long than it is on one that's 9' long. While the tail cuts were almost as simple, the shoulder cuts were essentially impossible. Crosscutting just wasn't doable, so I had to do the shoulder cuts by hand. Done, but not nice and clean. Sigh.

So, here's were it stands now…









Next up, cleaning up the tails, relieving the backside of the tails, and then cutting the half blind pins. Wohooo! That's going to be more "excitement."


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## woodcox (Nov 21, 2012)

BikerDad said:


> *Prepping for Takeoff*
> 
> More progress has been slowly taking place on my Roubo. Because the endcap tenon was just a bit long, and my pattern bit was maxed out for depth, I went to town chopping the mortise a bit deeper by hand. It looks ugly, but it's the bottom of a mortise, which is now deep enough.
> 
> ...


Looks good bd! A lot of real estate in that 9'. That is going to be a nice bench! Early congrats


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## Buckethead (Apr 14, 2013)

BikerDad said:


> *Prepping for Takeoff*
> 
> More progress has been slowly taking place on my Roubo. Because the endcap tenon was just a bit long, and my pattern bit was maxed out for depth, I went to town chopping the mortise a bit deeper by hand. It looks ugly, but it's the bottom of a mortise, which is now deep enough.
> 
> ...


Wow! Looks good. Some serious beef going on there.


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## BikerDad (Jul 16, 2008)

*Slabbin' like bacon!*

Almost finished with the front slab. Cut the sockets for the Condor Tails, let's just say that Jameel's instructions, while excellent, aren't quite as easy to pull off as one would think. Also, when test fitting Condor Tails, it's a good idea to use more than simply press fitting by hand. I ended up cutting the sockets too deep, which I discovered when I was fitting them and knocked the joint together. "Hey, why did the tails go in so far??" Fortunately, I had the test tails I'd cut previously, so I just cut some shims off of them, sanded them to fit. Eventually, I got a joint that works, sort of.

Next step was gluing the endcap and front strip. I used epoxy for the Condor Tail and endcap for the gap filling, and yellow glue for the front strip. It all went together, not as nicely fitted as I would like, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to fall apart on me. Some time spent with the handplanes bringing the tops of the dog and front strip down to size, and it was time to move on to final fitting of the vise.

I worked on that tonite, and woohoooo! I expected to have to spend a lot of time fiddling with it, shimming the rails and such, but it turned out that all I had to do was drill the screw holes for the rails. The work I'd spent previously on the rails paid off.

Next step: Shaping and fitting the dog block, then securing it, putting some suede on it, and voila, the vise will be done. After that, it's on to working on the base.

Pics to come.


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## BikerDad (Jul 16, 2008)

*Wow, it's been a long time, back to it....*

Summer and motorcycles seem to have interrupted my bench build for far longer than I thought. *Six*!!! months. Wow.

I did get the dog block fitted and installed before getting distracted. All that's left to do on the top is cut the mortises for the legs, drill the dog holes, (yes, round pooches for me), rout the mortise for the sliding deadman, and cut the tops to final length. ALL of those depend on the location of the legs, which depends on the final length of the base, which won't be determined until after the vise is fitted out.

So that's where I've spent a modest chunk of the last two weekends, working on the build/installation of the Benchcrafted Glide Crisscross leg vise. The first step was to glue up a blank for the chop, a task which was more involved and time consuming that anticipated. Why? Because I had to spend a good chunk of time reducing my jointer's snipe. Doing so involved a little side track into jointing a bunch of pallet wood I had, since that's what I used for testing the snipe chase, and I figured I might as well get it all done so I can use the wood for it's intended purpose. After that was done, I glued up the chop, using a 36" x 9" piece of 8/4 soft maple and two 6" x 36" pieces of 4/4 purpleheart. In order to get vertical grain in the purpleheart, I ended up skewing those pieces. This, naturally, complicated trimming the blank square, a task that ended up involving my bandsaw, handplanes, and then the tablesaw. Nonetheless, the blank was finally ready for machining.

Machining the leg and vise for mounting the vise was an interesting experience. From drilling a hole accurately through 9" of soft maple, to cutting machine screw threads in wood, there were successes and setbacks. The 9" hole, which I purchased a longer bit to drill, worked out perfectly, even though I ended up not using the 12" bit. The thread tapping also went well.

On the setback front, well, there were 4.


Numbered list Exploded drawings are your friend. Without them, it's easy to miss placing a washer. DAMHIKT.
Numbered list It doesn't matter how many times you measure (thrice), if you READ the Vernier caliper wrong. I should've simply taken a direct measurement instead of numeric.
Numbered list When switching back and forth between 1 1/2" and 1 3/4" Forstner bits, insure that the one you're using is the one you're supposed to be using. Even better, put the one you're done with AWAY.
Numbered list When excavating mortises, insure that you're excavating in the correct component.

None of the errors was critical, all were time wasters. The washer was potentially the worst, but actually the simplest to recover from. Knock out pin, disassemble, insert washer, reassemble, knock pin back in. Pretty sure that if I had not been able to knock out the pin, I would have called it a day…

All the machining for the vise is done, as well as all the machining of the "vise leg". Now I have to finish the machining of the other front leg, then cut the front and rear stretchers to length, cut the tenons on them as well as the side stretchers, clean up the mortises in the other legs, and see if the base will come together. I'm hoping to get much of this list done by the end of this weekend, but doubt that I will because I won't be in the shop much Saturday.


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## BikerDad (Jul 16, 2008)

*Fat tenons and some pics...*

Spent a bit of the weekend doing some tenons. Fat, long tenons. Completely by hand. Not because I had some burning desire to do them by hand, but because I'm not confident in any setup I could jury rig for putting tenons on the ends of 5' 5 1/4" timbers. I've gotten 3 of the 4 tenons done. The two completed on the back rail are 2" long, 1" thick and about 3 1/2" wide. The front rail tenons are only 3/4" long, but about 2 1/2" thick by 3 1/2" long, one has been done, the other still needs to be done. You can see the one that's been completed sticking up in the background of the first pic.

I promised pics last time, so here's a pair. The first pic is of the two rear legs and the lower stretcher (aka "back rail"). It's not glued up, I'll be using Benchcrafted's bench bolts, and haven't drilled the back legs or stretcher for 'em yet. That'll happen this week or the upcoming weekend. The bench the "assembly" is standing on is 6' long.










The second pick is the chop. I haven't shaped the chop to "pleasing to my eye" form yet. The leg that the vise will be attached to can be seen in the first pic, it's identifiable by a metal plate in a mortise.


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## bearkatwood (Aug 19, 2015)

BikerDad said:


> *Fat tenons and some pics...*
> 
> Spent a bit of the weekend doing some tenons. Fat, long tenons. Completely by hand. Not because I had some burning desire to do them by hand, but because I'm not confident in any setup I could jury rig for putting tenons on the ends of 5' 5 1/4" timbers. I've gotten 3 of the 4 tenons done. The two completed on the back rail are 2" long, 1" thick and about 3 1/2" wide. The front rail tenons are only 3/4" long, but about 2 1/2" thick by 3 1/2" long, one has been done, the other still needs to be done. You can see the one that's been completed sticking up in the background of the first pic.
> 
> ...


That chop turned out nice. Sometimes just a square is all that is needed and let the wood do the talking. love that benchcrafted hardware.


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## BikerDad (Jul 16, 2008)

*It's starting to look a lot like bench time...*

This weekend I finished up cutting the tenons (80% by hand) for the base, fitted them into the legs. Router planes ROCK!!!! I also drilled the long stretchers for the bench bolts and smooth planed all the legs. That was a lot of work!

Today, I mixed up some epoxy and put the ends of the base together. A pic of the ends cooking in the dining room is below. 









After taking them out of the clamp, I cleaned up the squeeze out, moved the top slabs onto my existing bench. I've got the legs on the slabs in the pic below in order to bet the correct spacing for the slabs. Tuesday, I hope to full assemble the base, mark the locations of the mortises in the tops for the legs, and if possible cut some spacers for the gap.










Scratch that. I'm going to be working 4 10s this week so I can hit the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event coming Friday. This means I'm unlikely to have time to work on the bench. Drat.


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## TheFridge (May 1, 2014)

BikerDad said:


> *It's starting to look a lot like bench time...*
> 
> This weekend I finished up cutting the tenons (80% by hand) for the base, fitted them into the legs. Router planes ROCK!!!! I also drilled the long stretchers for the bench bolts and smooth planed all the legs. That was a lot of work!
> 
> ...


Good stuff.

Router planes are friggin awesome eh


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## terryR (Jan 30, 2012)

BikerDad said:


> *It's starting to look a lot like bench time...*
> 
> This weekend I finished up cutting the tenons (80% by hand) for the base, fitted them into the legs. Router planes ROCK!!!! I also drilled the long stretchers for the bench bolts and smooth planed all the legs. That was a lot of work!
> 
> ...


Looks very clean! Great work!

Nothing like a router plane…well maybe a trip to a LN Tool Event!


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## BikerDad (Jul 16, 2008)

*March of the Dogholes....*

So, I'm closing in on the finish line.

Since my last blog entry, I've made the mortises in the top for the legs, and lo yea verily, it took just a couple swipes with my new LN Rabbet Block plane to get the beastly top segments to drop right on the tenons. After that, I took a break over Thanksgiving and didn't get back to working on the bench until this weekend.

So this weekend, my first task was to cut to the slabs to final length. This simply wasn't going to do it for me.









Life would have been much simpler if I had a radial arm saw, but I don't. Cutting cleanly through a 4+" slab is a bit of a challenge. The slabs are way too long and heavy to cut on my bandsaw, or tablesaw. So, I decided to take another shot at using a circular saw, and making the cut from both sides. Last time I tried that, I didn't get the cuts perfectly aligned, so I decided to try a slightly different approach. I planned on making a "box" to put around the ends, giving me perfect wrap around registration for the saw. yeah, that didn't quite work out the way I thought it would, likely because of the way I attempted to make the box. So, I fell back on the old straightedge clamp. One thing I discovered is that the clamp wouldn't allow me to get maximum depth of cut, something that I didn't discover until the "bottom" cuts. Sadly, the motor of the saw was riding on the clamp a bit, which introduced some wonkiness in to the cut. GRRRRRRR

I finished the cuts using a handsaw. Theoretically, one can clean up the ends using a block plane or the like, and I tried using my Veritas Low Angle smoother, but working VERTICALLY trying to trim hard maple end grain just wasn't doing it. Off to Plan C. Belt sander. Did the trick, I'll be finishing up the ends using a ROS with finer grits next weekend.

That done, next task was to install a temporary shelf, one that very well may be in use for a few months or a few years…. Because it is intended to be temporary, I wanted to keep the cost down, so I picked up some Western Cedar fence pickets at Home Depot. Arggghghhh…. it turned out that the fence pickets were too narrow. Knowing that HD didn't have what I wanted otherwise, I bopped in to Lowe's after lunch today, and found two 1"x12"x10' whitewood boards for less than $9 each. SOLD. Loaded 'em up, took them home, chop, cut, a little rasping and voila, a shelf below the bench.

Shelf done, I opted to do the dogholes. I had picked up the "Doghole Bushing" from Lee Valley last summer, so I built a jig for drilling the holes. Using the fine 3/4" brad point bit and my honkin DeWalt cordless, I was able to drill all the holes in a couple hours. Drilling the holes was actually a two step process, as the bit wasn't long enough to drill through the bench with the jig. So I drilled all the holes using the jig, then went back and finished drilling through the bench, with a backer board clamped in place. One thing that's very important when making your jig is to insure that the bushing is fully seated. If it isn't, then your dogholes won't be plumb. DAMHIKT.










There isn't much left for me to do on the bench. I've got to drill a few holdfast holes, finish flattening the top, make the deadman strip and deadman, ease all the edges, and put some finish on it. A few storage holes in the legs for holdfasts and dogs, and the filler strip will round things out.


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## theoldfart (Sep 9, 2011)

BikerDad said:


> *March of the Dogholes....*
> 
> So, I'm closing in on the finish line.
> 
> ...


Biker dad, looking good. I tried the skill saw route and had the same results. I opted for two battens and a 28" mitre saw, worked like a charm though I did have a Poppey arm for a few days. Ibuprofen helped that.

Looking forward to your next post(I haven't drilled the dogs yet)


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## terryR (Jan 30, 2012)

BikerDad said:


> *March of the Dogholes....*
> 
> So, I'm closing in on the finish line.
> 
> ...


Lots of work here! Coming together nicely.

I used the same approach for dog holes.
+1 to the frustration of planing end grain while it's laying flat. yuck!


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## BikerDad (Jul 16, 2008)

*Done!! Mostly.*

So, I haven't updated since December. I spent most of the holidays driving all around the Western US, and didn't get any work done on the bench. December starts "gift season", which doesn't end until early March, so most of my shop time went to turning gifts, but I did get the deadman runner and deadman made in January, followed up with some benchdogs in early February. In late February I started on the filler strips for the gap, and this past weekend I drilled the holdfast holes in the front slab and holdfast storage holes in the right front leg. Nothing special about any of it. Then I attacked the top with my previously unused Bosch ROS65VC Random Orbit sander with the 6" pad. 80 grit Mirka Abranet made quick work.

Effectively, the workbench is now done. It is fully functional. I still have to make some new bench appliances for it, and I plan on reshaping the leg vise chop. I'll likely make a new deadman, as the one I made isn't wide enough, so it doesn't like to slide along without tipping and binding. Before I do that though, I'm going to try adding some UHMW strips to the deadman's wear surfaces to see if that will resolve things. And I'm going to build storage "chests" to go into the base. Two for the backside, two for the front side.


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## BurlyBob (Mar 13, 2012)

BikerDad said:


> *Done!! Mostly.*
> 
> So, I haven't updated since December. I spent most of the holidays driving all around the Western US, and didn't get any work done on the bench. December starts "gift season", which doesn't end until early March, so most of my shop time went to turning gifts, but I did get the deadman runner and deadman made in January, followed up with some benchdogs in early February. In late February I started on the filler strips for the gap, and this past weekend I drilled the holdfast holes in the front slab and holdfast storage holes in the right front leg. Nothing special about any of it. Then I attacked the top with my previously unused Bosch ROS65VC Random Orbit sander with the 6" pad. 80 grit Mirka Abranet made quick work.
> 
> Effectively, the workbench is now done. It is fully functional. I still have to make some new bench appliances for it, and I plan on reshaping the leg vise chop. I'll likely make a new deadman, as the one I made isn't wide enough, so it doesn't like to slide along without tipping and binding. Before I do that though, I'm going to try adding some UHMW strips to the deadman's wear surfaces to see if that will resolve things. And I'm going to build storage "chests" to go into the base. Two for the backside, two for the front side.


I'm so envious.


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## theoldfart (Sep 9, 2011)

BikerDad said:


> *Done!! Mostly.*
> 
> So, I haven't updated since December. I spent most of the holidays driving all around the Western US, and didn't get any work done on the bench. December starts "gift season", which doesn't end until early March, so most of my shop time went to turning gifts, but I did get the deadman runner and deadman made in January, followed up with some benchdogs in early February. In late February I started on the filler strips for the gap, and this past weekend I drilled the holdfast holes in the front slab and holdfast storage holes in the right front leg. Nothing special about any of it. Then I attacked the top with my previously unused Bosch ROS65VC Random Orbit sander with the 6" pad. 80 grit Mirka Abranet made quick work.
> 
> Effectively, the workbench is now done. It is fully functional. I still have to make some new bench appliances for it, and I plan on reshaping the leg vise chop. I'll likely make a new deadman, as the one I made isn't wide enough, so it doesn't like to slide along without tipping and binding. Before I do that though, I'm going to try adding some UHMW strips to the deadman's wear surfaces to see if that will resolve things. And I'm going to build storage "chests" to go into the base. Two for the backside, two for the front side.


BDad, did you try paraffin wax on the deadman runner?


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## BikerDad (Jul 16, 2008)

BikerDad said:


> *Done!! Mostly.*
> 
> So, I haven't updated since December. I spent most of the holidays driving all around the Western US, and didn't get any work done on the bench. December starts "gift season", which doesn't end until early March, so most of my shop time went to turning gifts, but I did get the deadman runner and deadman made in January, followed up with some benchdogs in early February. In late February I started on the filler strips for the gap, and this past weekend I drilled the holdfast holes in the front slab and holdfast storage holes in the right front leg. Nothing special about any of it. Then I attacked the top with my previously unused Bosch ROS65VC Random Orbit sander with the 6" pad. 80 grit Mirka Abranet made quick work.
> 
> Effectively, the workbench is now done. It is fully functional. I still have to make some new bench appliances for it, and I plan on reshaping the leg vise chop. I'll likely make a new deadman, as the one I made isn't wide enough, so it doesn't like to slide along without tipping and binding. Before I do that though, I'm going to try adding some UHMW strips to the deadman's wear surfaces to see if that will resolve things. And I'm going to build storage "chests" to go into the base. Two for the backside, two for the front side.





> BDad, did you try paraffin wax on the deadman runner?
> 
> - theoldfart


Currently, there's neither finish nor wax on any part of the bench. The problem with the deadman is similar to the dangers of crosscutting on the tablesaw a piece that is significantly longer than it is wide without a miter gauge/crosscut sled.


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## theoldfart (Sep 9, 2011)

BikerDad said:


> *Done!! Mostly.*
> 
> So, I haven't updated since December. I spent most of the holidays driving all around the Western US, and didn't get any work done on the bench. December starts "gift season", which doesn't end until early March, so most of my shop time went to turning gifts, but I did get the deadman runner and deadman made in January, followed up with some benchdogs in early February. In late February I started on the filler strips for the gap, and this past weekend I drilled the holdfast holes in the front slab and holdfast storage holes in the right front leg. Nothing special about any of it. Then I attacked the top with my previously unused Bosch ROS65VC Random Orbit sander with the 6" pad. 80 grit Mirka Abranet made quick work.
> 
> Effectively, the workbench is now done. It is fully functional. I still have to make some new bench appliances for it, and I plan on reshaping the leg vise chop. I'll likely make a new deadman, as the one I made isn't wide enough, so it doesn't like to slide along without tipping and binding. Before I do that though, I'm going to try adding some UHMW strips to the deadman's wear surfaces to see if that will resolve things. And I'm going to build storage "chests" to go into the base. Two for the backside, two for the front side.


I see what you mean. Mine has a width to height ratio of almost 1:2( 9"x20 1/2"). What about a decorative outrigger?


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