I’ve only had about 2 hours of shop time since my last Roubo post, but thought I’d go ahead and put up a few more pictures of what I’ve accomplished. I actually have to go and pick up some more SYP at Home Depot to finish the top. There is a Lowe’s close to my area, but none of their SYP is kiln dried. The closest Home Depot is an hour away, so I don’t know when I’ll make it to pick some up.
I need about 3 boards to finish the top. If you look at the first picture below, the single 3 board piece on the left is the front of the bench. The four 3 board sections to the right are all glued up and will be the rear of the top. I have to glue up one more board and add it to the front piece and then a 2 board section will be milled with square dog holes and glued in between the front and rear sections to complete the top. I’m planning to put in a removable end cap on the right side and install a “wagon vise” made from just a block sliding in grooves with a screw driving it through the cap.
While I’m picking up the wood for the rest of the top, I’ll go ahead and pick up enough for the legs and stretchers and get that going next. Finally, the last two pictures included here show the solid rear of the top (the part behind the bench dog strip) glued up and in the clamps. I was really happy with how everything lined up. I’ll still have to flatten it with planes, but it shouldn’t be that difficult. Boy…I really need to make an investment in some parallel clamps!
I’ll post some more as progress continues. –JD
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I came to a harsh realization the other day when working on Leah’s bookcase…not having a decent workbench sucks bad! I walked in the house with my tail between my legs and explained that her bookcase would be delayed a little longer while I built at least my benchtop. I explained that I really needed the bench space because I was tired of being held back by my cheap flimsy bench with limited space. She said she understood and it was back out to the shop.
I decided to do the lamination in 3 board sections, so I began jointing, planing and cutting everything to dimension. My first 3 board glue up was all over the place. No matter what I did, I just couldn’t get it perfectly aligned. So after the glue up, it was back to the jointer and planer. After quite a bit of work, I was very happy with the result, but like I said, a lot of work.
On the next glue up, I decided to run a row of biscuits 1 inch from the bottom for better alignment. This was exactly what I needed and they went together beatifully. There will still be a little jointer and planer work, but much better. And with 3 inches above the biscuits, there is planty of meat for flattening the top through the years. So with that set, I was off to glue up the remaining 3 board sections, which are still in the clamps as I type this. The idea is to joint/plane each of these sections to the same thickness and glue them up two at a time. At that point, I can still get them through my planer for surfacing. I should be in pretty good shape when I glue up the entire assembly and have to pull out my #5 and #7. I knew this slab would be heavy, but I clamped it all up before glue up just to see and massive seems to be an understatement. Here’s a few pictures at various stages.
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