WIP Roubo: Finishing

[morfa]

Glad to see you've got the tops sorted. It's coming along nicely. Can't wait to see it finished.

 

[wcndave]

The only shame was that I couldn't take the opportunity to square up the front / back edges and bring the slabs to final width whilst there. (we had major time pressure).

I don't actually think it's going to matter that much, I might set up a jig with a router at some point, not sure.

Also I don't mind the bench being slightly deeper than planned, although my end cap will be massive now!

I think my advice to anyone without heavy duty industrial type machinery is that even if you can make the laminates for the slabs your self, take the finished glue up somewhere to be flattened. It can only cost £20 or so for 10 minutes work, and it really would have taken me hours and hours, and the result would not have been as good.

 

[owenmcc]

http://www.ffx.co.uk/tools/product/...h googlelink?gclid=CPSuo9KTp78CFRHHtAodO2gAng

Is this the blade you're looking for? €100 seems a very steep price, although I've noticed you'd need some international delivery...

 

[wcndave]

It costs that much here, but I ordered a bunch of stuff from axminster and with 14.50 international delivery its not too bad.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

 

[owenmcc]

Good, you certainly won't regret it.

You can count me as part of the embarrassed club of people trying to rip hardwood with the universal blade, it doesn't work! The panther definitely does.

 

[wcndave]

Yup, bow down for sure. The rip blade does a very nice job indeed!

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

 

[wcndave]

Not done anything for a while what with kitchen building., but the last couple of weeks seen good progress

Installed maguire tail vice, dog strips, made dogs stretchers and legs!

Fantastic to have something to pinch work between!

 

[Scottdimelow]

Those big machines are awesome! Nice WIP so far.

 

[wcndave]

I missed quite a few steps, some of these may be of interest, there's certainly been a lot of effort over the last few weeks.

I don't think I will build anything quite as big again. The sheer hassle of moving these large glued up boards, or leg assemblies.

It's quite tricky to find a balance between quality and speed. Certainly SWMBO does not see this as a priority, and I have 6 oak chairs to get finished for kitchen! However until I get this out of the way, valuable space is used, and no decent bench available.

It's only a workbench! However I will never build another like it (for myself), and therefore I should make it as perfect as possible, however I want to just finish it and get on with "real" projects... This conflict is quite hard to resolve, I think I am finding a good middle ground, although some of my mortise and tenons and dovetails leave something to be desired.

I forgot to mention on previous post, that cutting out the rebate for the leg vice attachment was done using the veritas mini router plane we got free from a UKW trip to Axminster. It was the first time used for something real, and it was very nice indeed!

Below we see the rough planing. There's no way to get a straight face / edge, or right angle between face and edge with the length of these pieces compared to the size of my planer. So I find getting the worst of the curve out by hand is really the only way, followed by some planing and then a fair amount of thicknessing, although really that amounts to "skip planing" where planing is the Murrican version in that expression...

This is what it looks like even after the first pass of hand planing

I made the square dogholes in a piece of the top laminate, using a template and router, first with guide bushing, and then with pattern bit.

There is a slight angle (2 deg) and a cutout for the top to stop the dogs falling through. The dog then when pinched moves to upright position. They're really quite nice.

Routing the doghole strip:

Gluing up strip - it was attached to another thin piece to make a complete "board" for the laminate

Attaching doghole strip to front laminate:

I made a mistake here and tried to keep the whole thing to a perfect thickness, and used dominos to align.
However my last board is not square, leaving me with an angle towards front of bench, and anything placed in dogs can rock back forth.
With hindsight i should have made the last two, the doghole and front laminates slightly proud and planed down to a finish.
Now I either have to hand plane the entire top flat, or route out and put in an insert on the top front laminate.

In order to keep things aligned during glue ups, I use dominoes, however they tend to be a very tight fit, so I like to bake my biscuits first.

5 mins at 100deg does the trick. I had the oven for tempering steel when knife making, however it's mostly used for baking biscuits and dominoes.

 

[wcndave]

For the end cap, I created the dovetail on the bandsaw and refined by hand. Getting the mortise and tenon right took quite a bit of finessing, and working on the end grain to get a flat end / shoulder line on the top was a real chore. (I'm not the best at the hand tool side)

However I then found I have a split in my end cap. The split was internal and could not be seen until I had cut square the end and created the dovetails.

I had planned to glue this in, however I don't know what to do about the split. If I leave it and have to replace it later, then I can't glue it in. If I make another, I have to find some more 8 quarter stock, and go through the entire process from scratch.

So I decided to go with the removable end cap option, however then I realised that my extra thick laminate pieces, at 5.5cm mean my mortise has to be about 6cm longer than the tenon, so I cut 1cm off the tenon, and extended the mortise as far as I dared towards the tail vice mounting points.

Now the end cap can be removed as required, which also means I could re-plane/thickness the tops to make them flat (not on my machines though, back to brother in laws factory for that), however the joint at the front is not perfect, so I was a bit worried that as it can move back/forward (when standing at bench normally), that the tail vice might have some movement in that direction.

Here's the finished joint

I then flipped the front of the top over, and installed the tail vice.

The tail vice is a thing of beauty and runs so incredibly smoothly. Precision engineered and made in the UK, with a hand created patina, I am very happy with it.

Having flipped bench the other way again, I could then use this to grip my work whilst hand planing all the leg and stretcher / rail parts, and it was a pure joy compared to clamping down.

The leg and stretcher parts were planed and thicknessed, each leg made up up two 4/4 parts glued together, and then I cut all the mortises for them. I am using draw boring to hold it all together.

I also created the tenons on all the rails, including the long ones, on my woodrat which is mounted chest height on the wall, and did an excellent job, if it was a little hard to hold these big workpieces vertical.

 

[wcndave]

I already posted on the leg assemblies, and boy are those things sturdy. It's actually a struggle to lift them onto the bench.

I turned my front slab bottom up, and then had the task of getting the back slab carried from garage and into place. I have not moved it since my Bro-in-law helped me when we planed it, and I ruptured a few things, knocked over a few things, and generally struggled big time!

Now it's in place and I can put the legs on to cut the mortises. This was a dry run, as I won't actually do this until the long rails are installed, however I wanted to check for dog holes.

So, new challenge...

In the plan, there was a dog in the middle of the tail vice leg, and you drilled a hole down, and in from front of leg, so you could push the dog out with your finger.

As my tail vice is different from the one Mark "wood whisperer" is using and I didn't allow for it, I ended up in the wrong place. I have two dogs hitting my legs. One glances on the inside, so I have cut a slot to get my finger in to push the dog out.

The other is more problematic, as it coincides with the draw bore connection of the rail. Basically I can't see anything I can do here, other than try to use a short dog which is custom made for that hole, and will always stick out, or have to be removed (the others I can push down below surface to get them out the way). You just know that's the dog I am going to lose all the time, on the other hand, how often do a need to pinch something so short between dogs?

I could move the legs and shorten my rails, however a) they are already cut and custom fit and ready to go and b) they have draw bore holes, so I'd have to cut a certain length off which may not work.

Serves me right for using the original plans and sketchup and trying to wing my adjustments, rather than drawing my own custom plan based on my modifications!

Also the bench is about 66cm deep (26"), i would rather have had 23" or so, however due to time constraints, that's how they came back from my factory visit, and I am not going to mess with those beasts any further.

 

[wcndave]

Well, good news!

I had some friends over to help with some of the lifting, and I managed to get the mortises for the legs cut, and the bench assembled, old bench out the way, new bench in, and lop off the ends with a handsaw.

I got a friend to do the sawing, reckon I should charge him for the "training" as he wants to get into woodworking...

I still need to clean up the ends, make and install leg vice + sliding deadman + bottom shelf, and finish, oh and small matter of flattening...

I rather think all those things will take a back seat now until I do some house projects, given the bench is now serviceable...

 

[noddy67]

Nice looking bench wcndave. Just mostly completed my own bench recently out of beech but really wanted to use maple like you have. Also just finished the sliding deadman. A few pics here if its of any interest:

design-advice-welcome-t86916.html

If you are looking for a front vice I can highly recommend the Benchcrafted one. Lovely piece of kit

 

[wcndave]

Thanks! I looked at beech but rejected it for some reason.

I have a MaGuire pinless leg vice, with a wooden screw.

You can see I have already cut the leg to take the nut on the back and for the pin assembly.

It really appealed to me to have firstly a UK hand made vice, and also the pinless one seems much less hassle.

You can see it in action here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI38vYEYOe0

I think it's quite important to decide on the hardware before you start building a bench, as the modifications to the leg are very different depending on what you go for. Woodwhisperer project used the benchcrafted one, and it does look nice, but I still think no pin will be great.

 

[wcndave]

I would be interested as to how much use a sliding deadman gets, It seems really cool, however not sure how much it REALLY gets used.

Your (noddy) bench looks really great. I stayed away from tool well, breadboard ends and drawers / cupboards, however that's the beauty of this, we can all do what we prefer or think is best for us.

Your workmanship looks to be on a completely different level from mine, I'll just be happy to have a nice solid non-racking flatish surface with all the work holding options I need. Maybe I'll make the next one better.... erm...

 

[wcndave]

Was about to press the button for some holdfasts from workshop heaven when it occurred to me that the reason they work is the thickness of the bench. In a deadman you have perhaps 1" thickness, so perhaps standard holdfasts won't work so well?

Perhaps the type that have the ability to screw down would be better. Any experience or recommendations?

 

[gasman]

HI Dave
I have a roubo which I made last year - I did a WIP for it
I use the sliding deadman all the time to clamp long pieces to the side of the bench. So you put it in the leg vice, move the sliding deadman until it is towards the other end of the piece, rest the piece on a dog inserted into the deadman at an appropriate height, and then you can use a holdfast through one of the other holes on the deadman to clamp it to the 4 inch edge of the bench - works a treat. It means you do not have to drill horizontal holes in the side of the bench. My bench is 90mm thick and the holdfasts work fine - you need a good 3/4" bit to drill them all. I also fitted a crotch which I use all the time too
Good luck
Mark

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Run a housing in the right hand leg and insert a piece of "Spur" type shelf support. You can then put a shelf bracket any height you wish - the only downside is that it is as far from the vice as the right leg, but it's great for doors and the like.

 

[wcndave]

Phil, that sounds like an interesting idea, I do already have 3 holes for holdfasts in that back leg, and don't often do doors, so I will see how I go and then bear it in mind if i find I need more options for height when holding on that leg.

Mark (gasman), your build looks really nice. I was curious as to why you had the holes going back from leg vice, as you can use the end vice to pinch work, and as you said in your WIP, the end grain may not hold it so well.

I see you have some holdfasts in your deadman, however i was thinking about the gripping strength.

As per Roubo's drawings, the grip comes from the angle and pressure against the sides:

And I read some people with extra thick tops had to make some relief holes for them to work. I was wondering if this still worked with a deadman of 1" thick, or if I should go for:

 

[gasman]

The holdfasts in the deadman are remarkably strong and make everything very solid so you can plane in any direction once it is clamped
The holes behind the leg vice are used on occasions when I have something wide and short to clamp and plane - they are very useful when used in conjunction with a dog in another hole - and I have been meaning to get some Veritas adjustable bench dogs which will make them even more useful
Regards Mark