# Roubo



## Journeyman_uk (23 Jan 2014)

I am a rather lucky woodworker, package from Dieter Schmid fine tools arrived this morning. Not sure if anyone wants a WIP but if there is enough interest then I will do a build commentary. 

J


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## MMUK (23 Jan 2014)

Silly question, we all love WIPs. Just make sure there's plenty of pics or there'll be trouble


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## Grahamshed (23 Jan 2014)

Ditto


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## SteveF (23 Jan 2014)

:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:


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## bodge (23 Jan 2014)

Don't post dumb questions! Of COURSE we want a WIP! With lots and lots and lots of pictures for us picture whores. :mrgreen:


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## carlb40 (23 Jan 2014)

Hellllll yeah. I will be doing a Roubo myself soon.


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## morfa (23 Jan 2014)

YES YES YES!!!!

Lots of photos please!


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## Journeyman_uk (23 Jan 2014)

Cool, 

Its going to be a slow burner this one, I will be sorting the wood out early feb and giving it a while to acclimatise but I will take plenty of pics. Might have to tidy up the workshop first!

J


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## carlb40 (23 Jan 2014)

Journeyman_uk":32mb18za said:


> Cool,
> 
> Its going to be a slow burner this one, I will be sorting the wood out early feb and giving it a while to acclimatise but I will take plenty of pics. Might have to tidy up the workshop first!
> 
> J


Oh poop, and there was me thinking you was going to knock it up this weekend. :mrgreen:


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## MickCheese (23 Jan 2014)

Take as long as you like. I've subscribed to the thread and will pop back as and when someone posts. 

Looking forward to this. 

If it's not a rude question. How much did the bench crafted stuff cost with tax and postage?

Mick


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## Journeyman_uk (23 Jan 2014)

>> If it's not a rude question. How much did the bench crafted stuff cost with tax and postage?

Sure Mick, 

I bought the tail vise, the front leg vice, the retro scissor brace (I felt that this was a more sturdy option and actually less of a faff to fit), the knock down connector set, the printed plans and the metric bolt set as opposed to imperial, all shipped with taxes was 911 Euros, which is a shade under 750 quid. 

If I had gone and got it from America it would have been about 600 quid but then I had the problem of HM Customs declaration of 3% import duty and 20% VAT so it would have been about the same. Plus if there was a problem its easier to DHL something back to Berlin than America. I must confess if I am putting pictures on here of the bench build I am going to make sure its the best bloody bench I can make so thats going to spur me on. 

I looked at Richard Maguire's tail vice and leg vice but the tail vice was about the same money and the leg vice screw was wood which I didn't really fancy. It suits Richards Benches but I wanted to go all metal so I'm a bit OCD when it comes to everything matching so I plumped for it all from Benchcrafted. I have checked the contents are all present and now its sat on the side waiting for me to get my finger out and get the wood organised. I might be delayed a bit with this as I am about to make a rather major kit purchase and if it comes off I'm going to decorate the workshop before I get going with this. 

J


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## Journeyman_uk (24 Jan 2014)

Tail Vice and Slider





Retro CrissCross mechanism. 





Leg Vice and Handwheel





Knock Down Bolts and boy are they beefy. 





Plans augmented by the website details that you print and the online videos which I am going to have to find a way of capturing so I can play them on the workshop TV. 

Im toying with which wood to use for the build. I know beech is traditional but Richard Maguire uses kiln dried ash and I saw in F&C his cherry behemoth. Benchcrafted make theirs out of Soft Maple but I am not aware that this is for sale in the UK at a reasonable price. I think I am going to plump with Ash so need to get some decent stuff sorted. 
Chris Tribe mentioned that British Hardwoods keep their wood in heated warehouses so the MC is around 8% which would be ready to work after its acclimatised. 
Any thoughts are welcome. 

J


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## carlb40 (24 Jan 2014)

Oooooh very posh. 

As to the vids. If you are using firefox? try video download helper


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## carlb40 (24 Jan 2014)

Ash could be a good choice 

http://www.renaissancewoodworker.com/ca ... cts/roubo/


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## marcros (24 Jan 2014)

Where in Yorkshire are you? Ash would work well, mine is ash. Don't worry about soft maple- they only use it because it is cheap and plentiful, much like mr Schwarz and his southern yellow pine!


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## ColeyS1 (24 Jan 2014)

Now that looks a nice collection of components ! Looking forward to this 

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk


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## MickCheese (24 Jan 2014)

Thanks for indulging me with the prices. That box of bits look like real class. 

Ash is a good price and I think it looks very nice, it also works well. 

Really looking forward to this. 

Mick


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## Journeyman_uk (24 Jan 2014)

marcros":3f44l0gi said:


> Where in Yorkshire are you? Ash would work well, mine is ash. Don't worry about soft maple- they only use it because it is cheap and plentiful, much like mr Schwarz and his southern yellow pine!



I'm Doncaster Based. I think ash will be lovely.


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## Doug B (26 Jan 2014)

Hi J,

Look forward to seeing your bench build.

A suggestion for a timber merchant would be http://stuartsomerscales.com they are only about 40 miles from you & probably the cheapest. I had the Beech I built my bench from from them they also sell Ash amoungst an awful lot of other timber.

Cheers.
Doug.

PS if you want to chat about Hammer/ Felder drop me a PM


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## Journeyman_uk (11 Mar 2014)

Quick update,

After nearly 2 months of waiting my felder combination is about to be delivered. Still need to get it commissioned but next week is a trip to get some ash for the project.

Should have some progress soon.

J


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## paulm2930 (11 Mar 2014)

I'm currently building a rouble bench and have a friend that is willing to
Machine me the tail vice parts copied from the benchcrafted stuff. OP 
Would you help me out and measure the components of the benchcrafted
Rail and sliding dog block so I can get some made please? Paul


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## cambournepete (12 Mar 2014)

You want someone who has paid for the parts to measure them for you so he can get them made cheap or even for free...?
Is it only me who finds this cheeky at best and possibly illegal at worst?


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## paulm2930 (12 Mar 2014)

It would only be illegal if I was to mass produce and sell them for commercial gain, that's not what I'm doing, I merely 
Wanted to be granted a favour so I as an aspiring woodworker can progress, something that good forums like this one were designed for.
If the OP thinks its cheeky that is for him to decide and if he chooses to tell me so I will accept it. I'd like to think that many on here would have the same view as me, maybe not.
Paul


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## Journeyman_uk (12 Mar 2014)

Rather excited, it was a right job getting it off the truck but the delivery chap was fabulous.


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## Journeyman_uk (2 Apr 2014)

After a few months sorting out some family issues I got round to getting a van and picking up some ash from Somerscales in Lincolnshire, which has to be the hardest wood yard in the world to find. No signs, just locals telling me I was in the wrong yard. 

Its all stacked in the workshop but it needs to be machined up a bit and put into stick before I pop off on my hols for a week. 






The new combination machine is up and running but Felder did a poor job on cleaning it as I have had to take the combination fence apart and clean out all the crud in it, lubricate it and re-assemble. It is bang square and true now.


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## Grahamshed (3 Apr 2014)

Looking forward to the build, and a report on the combination machine.


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## Journeyman_uk (3 Apr 2014)

With regard to the combination machine its actually awesome. I was using scheppach before (HMS3200 two blade) and a TS2000 table saw which was a complete joke. I actually pushed it over once by accident while cutting some oak. The felder has the 2600 sliding table and sliding crosscut arm so its so easy to use. I have been in contact with Felder for a few years regarding machines and I never had the justification for buying one but im about to refurb kitchen bathroom and bedrooms so it makes sense to build it myself and save about 40k (I had to sit down when the kitchen planner gave me his price, I came over all light headed (not a lie!)). 

I went to see Russel Jones at Felder and he told me about a second hand machine that had arrived and was as yet unadvertised. I went to MK and inspected the machine and we agreed a price, the items that needed refurbishing and put a deposit on it. He did say in January they could have it to me in two weeks but this turned into about seven as Austria seems unable to ship spares in a timely fashion. I paid for a new saw blade and scoring blade but they sent a 315 mm blade (it was specified) that wouldn't allow the scoring blade to be fitted. I ended up buying a 300mm blade for panel products to be used with the scorer so I wasn't too bothered. What did bother me was the spindle guard fences were damaged where a blade had dug in and they hadn't been replaced. I complained to Russell and he told me it didn't affect the safety of the machine and so as a gesture of goodwill a 10% discount was offered on a new set of fences. I will have to live with the old ones. 

Moral of this story, get a schedule of repairs agreed in writing before you put a deposit on it but I am still a happy bunny. The combination fence was full of crud as mentioned and I will go over the machine and recheck all of the dimensions as per the commissioning manual just to make sure everything is spot on. The engineer that came up was excellent, a real credit to the company and got it dialed in and working.

Its the 240v machine and it seems to have plenty of power, the saw is frighteningly big, the planer leaves an amazing finish (quick change blades are a doddle and you don't lose a day of your life with a micrometer sorting out the cut). I haven't tried the spindle yet as I don't have any tooling but thats next on the list as I need to make some kitchen doors. I am off to Armstrong Jordans open day on the 17th May so I will be quizzing him about what to buy to make shaker doors. 

I just need to get into workshop and make some holders of all the tooling on the wall next to the machine so I have somewhere safe to store all the bits.


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## Benchwayze (3 Apr 2014)

Marcros;

SYP is fairly plentiful in the Midlands, but I wouldn't say it's cheap. 8) 

Enough for the top and the legs cost me around £300.00 from George Sykes, and after two/three years it's just about acclimatised! I will have to use some Douglas Fir too for the fol-de-rols (spelling!) like vice cheeks and sliding dead-man.


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## Journeyman_uk (3 Apr 2014)

Benchwayze":3a7xxt45 said:


> Marcros;
> 
> SYP is fairly plentiful in the Midlands, but I wouldn't say it's cheap. 8)
> 
> Enough for the top and the legs cost me around £300.00 from George Sykes, and after two/three years it's just about acclimatised! I will have to use some Douglas Fir too for the fol-de-rols (spelling!) like vice cheeks and sliding dead-man.



Thing is, I just spend the best part of 700 quid on the hardware and plans and I want a reasonably strong wood to make the bench from, I think that SYP would be a compromise. Saying that if I wanted to show off I would have built it out of cherry


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## Benchwayze (3 Apr 2014)

I wasn't suggesting that you used SYP JM. 

I was just commenting that SYP isn't so 'cheap' over here. I was going to use Ash initially, but as I wasn't going to spend a fortune on lovely gear like yours, I decided SYP would be okay, and also strong enough, according to Chris Shwarz's book anyhow!

But I am hoping you aren't making just one bench from all that timber. If you are then I should go out and order a lot more SYP!!! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: 

Best of luck with the project.


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## Journeyman_uk (3 Apr 2014)

Benchwayze":1hgxglpz said:


> I wasn't suggesting that you used SYP JM.
> 
> I was just commenting that SYP isn't so 'cheap' over here. I was going to use Ash initially, but as I wasn't going to spend a fortune on lovely gear like yours, I decided SYP would be okay, and also strong enough, according to Chris Shwarz's book anyhow!
> 
> ...


 
Your right you weren't talking to me , sorry about that. That's about what I'm going to need with about 4 boards left over for mistakes, unless I massively over ordered (which could be).


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## Benchwayze (4 Apr 2014)

Okay JM:

I ordered three boards, (each 16 feet long) of 12 x 2 SYP. I got two 6 foot boards from each of those planks, and converted to 18 x 6 foot 4 inches x 2". I shall need 12 of those to make the top 6 feet x 2 feet (approx) by 4 inches thick. That leaves 6 lengths, from which to fabricate the legs, into 6" x 4", with left overs for the tray at the bottom. The 
Douglas fir will be used to make the fittings such as the sliding dead-man and the boards to make the tray. So in effect I bought 48 board feet of 12 x 2 SYP. I already had the Douglas fir which is in four, four foot lengths of 4 x 4 inch. Ample for the under-tray and dead-man. There will be some rub-jointing to do with the Douglas Fir, but I don't mind that. 

If it needs any more timber, well that's my luck as usual! Or rather my bad planning! :mrgreen: 

Do we have to keep on calling you Journeyman BTW? :wink: 

John (hammer)


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## gasman (4 Apr 2014)

John your roubo almost exactly mirrors mine - same quantities and size of bench in SYP. I have not regretted making mine from SYP - it is fantastic
Good thread and good luck
Mark


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## Doug B (4 Apr 2014)

Journeyman_uk":3lkhy6sa said:


> got round to getting a van and picking up some ash from Somerscales in Lincolnshire, which has to be the hardest wood yard in the world to find. No signs, just locals telling me I was in the wrong yard.



The best treasure is always the hardest to find :wink: :lol: 

The machine looks excellent, a real beaut, I look forward to seeing the bench build & meeting you down at Bob's


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## Benchwayze (4 Apr 2014)

gasman":1i1zmdif said:


> John your roubo almost exactly mirrors mine - same quantities and size of bench in SYP. I have not regretted making mine from SYP - it is fantastic
> Good thread and good luck
> Mark



Thanks Mark. I have to get around to it this year. My other half is slowly getting better and I can get more time in the shop. First though I have to finish the clear-out of junk! I am beginning to wonder though if the MFT I bought means I won't be using the Work-bench as much as I envisaged. Although I have an idea the Roubo might end up in its own shed, as a hand-work area. I agree, this looks to be developing into an interesting thread. A WIP plus a new shiny machine for us all to drool over! :mrgreen: 

Keep that bench flat 8) 

John


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## Journeyman_uk (4 Apr 2014)

Doug B":2o0asqev said:


> Journeyman_uk":2o0asqev said:
> 
> 
> > got round to getting a van and picking up some ash from Somerscales in Lincolnshire, which has to be the hardest wood yard in the world to find. No signs, just locals telling me I was in the wrong yard.
> ...




They were massively helpful though Doug when I finally found them and thanks to your counsel I got a good deal on the felder. Be nice to meet you too.

Call me David john or shorten journeyman to j, other way I been called a lot worse lol.


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## gasman (4 Apr 2014)

John I have an MFT as well - but in my opinion it is just not robust enough compared to the roubo
Years ago I tool the legs off and built cabinets underneath which contain all my Festool boxes and the extractor - there are lots of plans on the FOG website. I tend to use that as a finishing or assembly table - but the roubo is out on its own in terms of clamping ability, length, flatness etc etc
Good luck
Mark


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## Benchwayze (4 Apr 2014)

Thanks Mark. 
Fact is, anything has to be an improvement over my old work-horse of a carpenter's bench. It's been a good servant, but like me it's getting rickety! 

Cheers

John


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## Journeyman_uk (22 May 2014)

Its been about 6 weeks since I managed to do any work on the roubo. When I bought the Felder Combi I needed to build some wall hangers to place the sliding carriage etc on so that took me a week on and off. I also did a weekend with Chris Tribe in Ilkley on his modern cabinet making course which was excellent. I then went back and did a full week on Laminating and Veneering which was awesome. I managed to have a full day in the workshop and started machining up the legs and lower and upper rails for the Roubo. I was having problems actually getting the stock squared up so after a lot of checking and head scratching I took a straight edge to the planer and found the problem. 

When I bought the machine from Felder I was assured an engineer was going to service the machine and set it up to factory settings. What they appear to have done is not checked the planer knife settings. I thought I had the tersa block that was self setting but when I started taking it apart I apparently have the four knife block with quick change knives. These are supposed to be factory set so the knives presumably are parallel to the outfeed table and its checked by how many mm it picks up the gauge and advances it. According to the commissioning manual 2-3mm. Two of the knives didn't touch the gauge so presumable were not even cutting and one was moving it on the left side by 12mm and 1mm on the right. I had to strip the lot apart, clean and lubricate the grub screws and start again. 6 hours later I had a machine that was as near perfect as I could get. The planer now works beautifully and the result from the machine doesn't leave any knife marks. 

Back to the bench!


legs have been roughly dimensioned and left to settle and then glued up.












The problem I have now is that the long rails are 46 inches long and somehow the wood I have for one of the rails seems to taper away at the end. I was being a bit ambitious trying to get two long rails out of a single plank but I thought I could get away with it. What I am left with is about an inch of wood that is about 2 mm thinner at the very end that it needs to be. Most of if will be cut away with the tenon but clever arrangement of wood will make sure its never seen and its not on my reference face. 





Offending plank in question, part thicknessed. 





Mark is where the tenon will be, so not much to worry about. 





Long rail is dimensioned and now being cut square, flipped and then cut to length. 





Finally legs are out of clamps and ready to machine to final dimension. If you look at the third leg down the cup of the end grain goes the same way. I decided follow Jim Kirkpatrick's roubo grain orientation and make sure that closest rings were face to face. This obviously would give a more even grain pattern on the outside faces of the leg. However there was a rather hideous knot on the intended outside face so this has been oriented inwards and hopefully isn't near any mortices etc. 

Next job is to get the legs marked out and work out the best way to cut the deep mortices. I think its definitely going to be some new drill bits on order.


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## SteveF (23 May 2014)

keep it going

I am sure there are lots of interested watchers

Steve


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## wcndave (23 May 2014)

I am just about to embark on my own roubo build with vices from the English woodworker and am following your build with great interest.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk


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## Journeyman_uk (25 May 2014)

I looked at the wooden screw vice and didn't fancy it to be honest. I have a wooden screw vice on the sjobergs bench and it tends to move seasonally and bind. I felt metal was the way to go. I like the wagon vice but then my handles wouldn't match so I went benchcrafted. 

Can you do a work in progress on the English woodworker bench build wcndave, be nice to see it.


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## wcndave (28 May 2014)

Journeyman_uk":37pnq9iu said:


> Can you do a work in progress on the English woodworker bench build wcndave, be nice to see it.



Mine will be a hybrid. Based on the split top Roubo that I think benchcrafted sponsored in the Woodshisperer guild, adjusted to use the English Woodworkers vices.

I will try and do some WIP, I have started with my lumber woes, the stock I am able to get requires some serious work, and will result I think in 70% waste.

I can't get it near a machine until some hand sawing (or jigsaw work) has taken place.

There seems to be a gap here in North Italy, basically you can get wood from a box store, soft wood only, and expensive, or you go to a lumber yard and they cater for the professional shops with very large capacity to mill this stock.

Details are here: http://www.mywoodworkmatters.com/lumbering-up/


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## Journeyman_uk (28 May 2014)

Wow 70% waste is horrendous! The benchcrafted plans are available for 18 euros or something, it's worth having a look at as all the dimenions are there for you leaving no ambiguity. You just have to alter the holes for wooden screws and tail vices. 

I'll make sure the pictures are as comprehensive as I can make them. Good luck preparing your stock.

J


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## Harbo (28 May 2014)

Wow that lumber is not good. It looks like you will have to cut into narrow strips to maximise use?

Rod


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## Journeyman_uk (28 May 2014)

If that was me, I would take that lumber back after seeing the images on your blog. I would be trying to get a trade account with the professional yards and insist I sorted through the planks to get what I want. Timber isn't cheap and I would refuse to pay for waste of such a level.


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## wcndave (28 May 2014)

Three problem is that I am going to a trade place and not picking boards is just how it is.

A friend came to help me lift them into a pile and he didn't know what I was complaining about and he is a professional joiner. 

With my wood whisperer membership I thinki have all the plans including sketch up.

Just annoying that I can't get lumber here quite as "ready“..

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## Journeyman_uk (29 May 2014)

Can you get imported lumber, the American stuff tends to be straight edged and not waney? 
J


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## wcndave (29 May 2014)

I'm not sure it would be cheaper to import than just cut the stuff they have themselves.

There is Canadian maple however that's hard maple not soft.

I just think their target audience is trade, I don't know any other hobby woodworkers here.

The one place I have sourced roughly milled lumber was from a furniture maker, but that was just off cuts that cost me a crate of beer! 

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## Journeyman_uk (29 May 2014)

I guess if there isn't a furniture making community in the locality then there probably won't be a supply chain to service it. Well best of luck with it. 

J


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## wcndave (29 May 2014)

Oh there are lots of them.most people I know are in one trade or another, however they have the kit to deal with it, 50 cm table saws to take 5m panels.

I am getting some of the equivalent of plywood which comes in 5m x 3m panels! 

Everybody has a site saw at home but that's just for firewood.

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## morfa (31 May 2014)

The Felder looks awesome I have to say. Really enjoying the build so far.


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## Journeyman_uk (31 May 2014)

It's not been without issues morfa. It's getting dialled in now and every thine I use it in a different way it just gets better and better.

I am intending to cut the tenon shoulders with the table saw set up with a stop block on the fence. I am going to cut the cheeks with the bandsaw with some blocks machined to provide the offset as the tenons aren't symmetrical (chris tribes method which works exceptionally well and tight fitting tenons almost off the blade. Problem being I ordered some tuffsaw blades and when they arrived I had managed to buy the wrong size. Thankfully they are too big by 4 inches so they are shipped back down to Ian to alter for me.
Great customer service from him I must add.

I'll get the camera set up on the tripod and get some detailed shots so you can see what I'm banging on about. I just need to pick up the pace now and get some hours on this project as I have a house to refurb next.
J


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## Journeyman_uk (6 Jun 2014)

While I was waiting for Ian at Tuffsaws to sort out my mistake I thought I would get on with the mortises. I prefer to use a router and spiral bit as you get very clean shoulders. I normally only make shallow small mortises so my cutter is only 8 mm diameter. So I would need multiple passes to get a full inch width cut. I use a secondary fence to steady the router. This has the problem of making the fine adjuster useless because the leg is that wide the bar only just reaches each sides of the fence. The secondary fence is just a piece of ash with a longer piece of ash stuck onto it with double sided tape. There are two 10 mm holes to receive the rods and then two 6mm locking holes drilled vertically into them. One of the techniques used in the hardware fixing on this bench is tapping metal screws into wood. I must admit I was a bit dubious that wood would hold a metal screw with a decent strength but it worked really well. I gently fed a M7 tap into the wood with a really slow turning drill and carefully backed it out when it had broken through into the 10mm hole. The screws hold amazingly well and did a perfect job (impressed)!







I adjusted the router to the closest to the face edge and routed in multiple shallow pass with a final cleaning pass. I did this for each leg and each mortise before adjusting the position of the router relative to the face. This way I was only ever going to adjust the router two or three times as opposed to working on each mortise until completion. 






I made a series of vertical plunges and clear the chippings before I did a horizontal pass to square up the shoulders as seen in the pic below. 






This gives me a nice set of square sides the mortice with just the short edge to square up. Since I knifed all the boundary marks before I started I had a place to locate my chisel to pare away the waste. 






This leaves me with lovely squared up mortices. 






The bandsaw blades also arrived today and the saw is now set up square to the table, the drift has been corrected and I can think about making some stop and offset blocks for the tenons, which should be fun. I marked the shoulder cuts out for the tenons but I need to double check everything and get my knife marks in place.


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## Journeyman_uk (6 Jun 2014)

Got a bit of free time this morning and had a few hours in the workshop. First job is to scribe the shoulders on the rails. This was done on the slider with the riving knife removed because for some odd reason the tip is thicker than the blade. The fence and height was set with a scrap piece and then the shoulders were scribed. 






Which leaves us with something like this. 






The setup on the bandsaw is really simple, the spacer is the same thickness as the tenon plus the saw kerf. With the spacer in place we can adjust the bandsaw fence to make a cut just on the waste side of the line on the cut closest to the reference face.






The spacer is removed to create the correct offset and then the other cut can be made. 






The result is we are left with some nice clean tenons which need very little work with the shoulder plane to get a decent fit. I left a little on the tenon to hand fit them, I thought about getting the tenon to fit off the blade but the amount of setup for 12 tenons didn't seem to justify the extra faffing. 











I need to cut down the top part of the tenons which I think will be done on the bandsaw and cleaned up with a nice sharp chisel. 

Any questions please ask


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## Phil Pascoe (6 Jun 2014)

Why didn't you offset the tenon, or have a single shoulder so the outer wall of the mortice could be left thicker?


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## Journeyman_uk (6 Jun 2014)

The dimensions are straight off the plans so all I have done is made the legs a bit taller to raise the bench top height. It does look a little weak I must admit so I am going to have to be careful when fitting the tenon.


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## Journeyman_uk (28 Aug 2014)

Hi folks, been a while since I posted anything, not much progress has been made but I am up and running again. 

I dry assembled the left and right sides to check for fit and squareness and everything looks fine






I thought I would work on the chop next and the receiving left leg to get some wood off the stack. The reason I haven't finished the frame is I noticed a problem with the position of the front long rail. The plans I have are for the original Roubo bench with a pinned vise, I have bought the retro cross vice (I looked like it was sturdier) but you need to rout a channel for the cross brace to sit in. As I am using a knock down kit the bolt would actually have fouled the movement of the vice where the plans have it. I did check the amendments for installing the vice and somehow have completely missed this even though I went over it about 5 times. The mortise has been plugged and the front rail will be moving inwards about an inch. I will take some photos so you can see what I am talking about and if your building one of these monsters yourself you can avoid this error. 

So, the chop. I took some more 10 inch wide ash, ripped it and then planed and thicknessed to about 35mm each side. Glued them together and brought the whole thickness down to 2 1/2 inches and 9 inches wide. The leg and chop were marked out as a pair as the alignment of the hole and cross vice pins are super critical. I then trenched out the housing for the back of the brace. The same operation was done on the leg for the mating part of the brace. No point posting pics of that as its exactly the same process. 






which left me with the following. 






A recess was drilled on the face of the chop and then a through hole was drilled from both sides to prevent blowout. I made sure there was an awl mark on both sides to locate the center of the forstner bit. I must have been spot on (surprised face) as there wasn't a detectable step between the two holes when they met. The recess is to take a washer that sits behind the screw flange.










The same was done on the left leg and that left a tiny little step but it was a bigger distance to drill and my drill press objected with every plunge. 






The next job was to assemble the handle, flange, washer and locking pin to prevent the wheel from spinning on the screw shaft. Once this was done I could mark out the location to drill and tap the flange screws. The chop was put on the bench horizontally and the assembly lowered in and made sure it was dead center. Once this was done I marked the position of the screws with my awl and drilled and tapped them. 











The next stage was to fix the machine screws in place. 






Now when I bought the kit, I specified the metric screws as all I have is a metric tap and die set and metric drill bits. I managed to use the metric screws to secure the flange and also I have a set of metric screws to attach the acetal bushing and the rear thread but the cross glide is supplied with imperial!. I just ordered an imperial tap and die set and a set of imperial wood screws to do the machining of the threads so I can get on with the new mortice housing while I wait but I was on a real roll. 

I am hoping to wrap up the base this weekend and get on to making the top so all being well there should be some other updates following shortly.


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## Journeyman_uk (11 Oct 2014)

There has been progress! I just haven't posted it as I have been so busy with work and other stuff that gets in the way. The next job is to check the chop and scissor works correctly, so the brackets are put on the chop and the leg and its super critical that they are in exactly the same level or the whole thing will bind when you wind it in. The mounting holes were biased upwards to make sure it is tight against the top of the mortice.











The criss cross was connected and then the screw put through the hole to check for level. once the natural position has been found, the thread is wound on and then the position marked. 











Once the position is found, the holes were drilled and tapped for the machine screws as shown below. 











Now I started getting the Knock Down joinery sorted to finish up the base. I needed to drill through the leg to mark the tenon, the tenon was removed from the assembly and then that was drilled through at the drill press. The bolt hole was drilled into the lower rail to allow the access for the bolt. The whole thing was assembled to test for fit and once I was happy I repeated this for the next 3 joints. 











The short upper rails were then marked and drilled through to allow the wood screws to connect the base to the top and the joints were assembled and marked for tenon dowels to draw the joint together. I used Chris Schwarz tips for creating offset holes in the tenon to draw the tenon closer and it seems to have worked really well. The dowels were made using a lie-nielsen dowel plate and a bloody big hammer. 

The base was assembled with the knock down joinery and the sides were clamped together and then the dowels were glued and knocked home. 











The parts of course were planed before assembly and all the witness marks removed. I still have to arris the corners but I wanted to make sure the whole thing was assembled before I did as there are some edges that must be left intact. 

The final job for this session is to glue the ledgers in place (these were made earlier which I forgot to photograph) and clamped overnight to cure. The next task is to get the chop shaped and the base chamfered. I also have to extend the front lower rail to take the sliding deadman as it had to be moved backwards so as not to foul the crisscross. Any questions? No then I will move on


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## wcndave (12 Oct 2014)

Lots of progress, looking good! 

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk


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## rafezetter (12 Oct 2014)

Looking very good so far, a bench to enjoy a lifetimes woodwork.


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