My Roubo

[T.J.]

I seem to have neglected to post my completed Roubo on the forum. So, here it is - after about 3 years of off and on work between two moves. At last.

Soft maple with American black walnut accents. Dogs are in American black walnut with red oak springs.

A few points:

1. I had to laminate the chop from some walnut I already had on hand, but one full-width board I bought from a small lumber dealer locally. This is the layer that faces outward. After all the maple and the BC hardware kit, I was trying to save money where I could. It turned out generally fine, but the lamination did end up cupping just bit, due to the humidity in my non-climate controlled garage shop. It isn't enough to really interfere with use or to notice, unless you look closely.

2. I'm planning to cap the other three ends in walnut at some point, but I wanted to start using it and it's actually complete per the drawings.

3. I did the wagon vise dovetails according to the supplementary "condor tails" method (a PDF on the BC website, I think) which circulated separately from the bench drawings. I cannot recommend this technique enough. It really helped me nail the fit and I will do all large dovetails this way in the future.

4. The sliding dead man is another lamination. Side-by-side, but not "book matched". You can see the seam, but it has lots of nice figure. So, I think that makes up for it. lol

5. The primary lumber (soft maple) did end up containing some nice figure on several boards, so I tried to put that in specific places to show it off a bit. The front lamination, a couple in the middle of the tops, plus the short stretchers at each end.

6. The bench dogs are made from some super cool quilted black walnut I had in my scrap bin which I was saving for just such a project. I don't remember where it came from.

7. Finally, there are plenty of mistakes in this project which I won't bore you with. One exception: I ended up with key cuts in the wagon vise rail installation being 1/4" or so too high which caused my screw to run diagonally. However, fortunately, I was able to recover, route them deeper and install without too much trouble in the end.

8. Current finish is one coat of BLO, but I'm going to do a second coat using the 3-mix formula touted by many: mineral spirits, poly and blo.

All in all, I'm thrilled with the result since it's only my second bench. I suspect I'll use this one for 4-5 years, then make another one to see if I can get at least a little closer to perfection. lol

Having such versatile, ready work holding attached to this mass makes hand work downright luxurious. It really is life changing as far as woodwork is concerned.

Thanks for looking.


























And a few with my existing tool cabinet in place above/behind it. Now I have to make a new tool cabinet, of course. lol

[iclark]

Wow! Beautiful!

What did you wind up with for the length, depth, and height?

Did you put rollers under the bottom of the leg vise chop?

[T.J.]

Wow! Beautiful!

What did you wind up with for the length, depth, and height?

Did you put rollers under the bottom of the leg vise chop?

Thank you, Ivan.

The leg vise chop is just about 1/4" off the ground. And the Benchcrafted criss-cross keeps it parallel with the leg.

87" long. 91 if you include the vise knob.
24" deep
35" from the floor to the top surface.

[Aram]

Great work! That looks fantastic.


If you don't mind, I have a question. I notice that you, as some others have done, lined the chop and the bench behind it with cork or crubber. The piece on the bench itself will cause a long-ish board to stand away from the bench in the area outside the chop. Do you find this causes any boards flex when you edge-plane them?

[T.J.]

Great work! That looks fantastic.


If you don't mind, I have a question. I notice that you, as some others have done, lined the chop and the bench behind it with cork or crubber. The piece on the bench itself will cause a long-ish board to stand away from the bench in the area outside the chop. Do you find this causes any boards flex when you edge-plane them?

Yeah, mine is lined with the suede leather that came with my hardware.
I haven't done any real edge planing with the bench yet, so I couldn't speak to your question, really. Though I would guess that it really doesn't do that in any noticeable capacity. The offset would just be too minor to influence the work, in my opinion.

[MarkSingleton]

Very very nice!!

[stav]

Wow! What a great bench. Nice work.

[T.J.]

Wow! What a great bench. Nice work.

Thank you!

[T.J.]

Very very nice!!

Thanks!

[cputnam]

Completely and totally awesome!