giant Cypress

Building a Roubo workbench rerun

Yes, this is another series of Roubo workbench build articles. I posted this on Woodnet three years ago when I was in the process of building my bench, as well as in installments on WoodCentral. So why repeat it here? Mainly, I wanted these articles on my own website, so that just in case something happened to those forums, I would still have a record of it.

Also, lots of other woodworkers are posting about their Roubo workbench builds right now, and quite honestly I feel a little left out of the fun.

Why a Roubo for someone who uses Japanese tools? Even without the Japanese tool angle, I’ve liked the simplicity of the design ever since I first read about it in Scott Landis’ workbench book. Christopher Schwarz’s Roubo article in Woodworking magazine also made a big impression on me, and my Roubo workbench is pretty much this design, without hardly any modification.

After reading Chris’ subsequent articles on the Nicholson and Holtzapffel workbenches, I decided that the Roubo was the one for me. The thick top is quite close to the planing beam that Japanese woodworkers use, and the lack of a vise on the right hand corner of the benchtop provides a perfect place to put a planing stop for Japanese planes. The Nicholson and Holtzapffel designs both featured some sort of end vise in that position, and I thought that for Japanese planes, the end vise would be in the way, and that planing against the end vise would not be the best thing for the vise. Of course, at the time I was stupid enough not to realize that I could simply leave the end vise out.

So here goes a trip down memory lane.

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(Originally written Jan. 12, 2009)

In a burst of energy with the new year, I finally made some movement towards building my “real” workbench. The temporary poplar-beam-on-sawhorses workbench that I had been using since May still works great. I was able to plane, chop mortises, do chisel work, and saw using it without issues. And actually, the main benefit that I think I will get from this bench is extra counter space. I think this benchtop will wind up being about 7’ x 22”. Over the past several months, I’ve needed the extra counter space much more than I’ve needed a leg vise.

Anyway, here’s where I started:

I jointed and squared up eight 8’ Douglas fir 4x4s that I’ve accumulated from a local borg over a 12 month period. When I’m done gluing this up, I expect to have a benchtop that’s essentially clear quartersawn Douglas fir with pretty tight grain.

The milling I did last Thursday. This weekend I made some headway in gluing up my workbench top. I learned just how much wood can twist and bow after you do initial milling. I also got a lot more practice at correcting this twist with hand planes, if you know what I mean. Although I know I know this, I am really surprised as to how quickly I can square up something this large with hand planes. In some ways, it was easier than the initial milling up with my jointer/planer combo.

The other thing I learned is that if one of my planes is working in a less than optimal manner, I know how to correct it. For some reason, though, I insist on just plowing ahead instead of stopping to tune up the plane, until I get to the point where I just have to do it. Then I find out that I’ll zip along three times as fast as I was.

To get going on this, I clamped together most of the 4x4’s together on the sawhorses to provide a temporary work surface, squared up two of the beams, and then unclamped the other 4x4’s to give me room to use the sawhorse as a support for the glue up. In fact, I had put the bar of the clamp on the top side so it could be used as a planing stop. As you can see in the picture, I’m also learning the true meaning of the phrase, “You can’t have too many clamps.” I placed an order for some more today. Hopefully they’ll get here in a timely manner.

All together, there will be eight 4x4’s going into this benchtop. I’m planning on gluing one additional beam a day, partly because I only have so many clamps, partly because of space issues (the picture really shows the entire width of my shop) and partly because I want to get a full day of drying time for the glue, just in case I didn’t take care of all the twist. I’ll probably do another set of three separately, and then finish up with the remaining 4x4s.