All these nice workbenches!

[Steven Hess]

Hello all. I'm late coming to the woodworking game, but better late than never.
I'm planning on a Roubo variation as my first project after the woodshop extension and more sawhorses. My question is has anyone made one from red oak, white oak, or beech? Or all 3 combined? I'm fortunate to have a whole bunch of all plus some loblolly pine and cedar. I use a Norwood sawmill and then clean up with my Makita Track Saw and Rikon 10-325 BS. I've heard comments in other forum about splintering. Any other downsides? Upsides? It's free! Was at Lowe's and they wanted $22 for a 1x4x10' red oak board. I use them for tomato stakes and saw horses!

Thanks for any input.

[Paul Murphy]

I made a workbench out of beech, and except for lots of wood movement during air drying it is great. I also have lots of red oak, and should have used some for legs and stretchers so as to conserve the beech for the top and vice faces. The oak is more stable than the beech, but oak will splinter on a sharp edge so round it over.

Just me, but I would use what wood I have or can get at a reasonable price. I'm sure there were plenty of oak work benches built in the past, and I'm sure they were both sturdy and long lasting.

[Stephen Cherry]

Here is a video of King Roy:

http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/video/2700/2705.html

[ian maybury]

Hi guys. I can't add a lot other than to say that I've had a big stack of European beech conditioning for several months in my workshop for a Roubo style bench (while I finish rewiring and installing a new Pentz style dust system), and can confirm that it moves quite a lot.

It's almost perfectly clean 10x2 in crown cut from a UK merchant from Germany, and some of it cupped by maybe 1/8 in or a bit less in the first few weeks after coming into the workshop which is a little more humid and will have (only by maybe 2% ) driven up the 10% moisture content or so it measured at when it arrived. It seems to have stayed put since.

This on the one hand is a bit worrying, but on the other maybe suggests that if the timbers are roughly sized and left to sit for a week or two that if it's not moved by then it'll probably (possibly?) be OK to finish size.

I guess I'm also relying on the fact that the boards will when laminated to form the 4in plus thick solid top be standing on edge so that it'll be close to being quarter grain when glued up - maybe this will help the stability, and leave it fairly resistant to subsequent movement.

It sounds like it would be unwise to delay between machining and gluing up the boards for the top.

Beech either way has for many years been a very traditional timber for bench construction over here, although this may be as much to do with its easy availability as any major technical advantage. That said oak is easily available too, which suggests that beech was for whatever reason preferred.

Here's a presumably informed view on wood choice for benches: http://benchcrafted.blogspot.com/2010/03/ordering-lumber.html

The plan is to shoot for something close to the full length Chris Schwarz model from his book of a few years ago, but with a twin screw vice to the front LH side, and a std face vice on the RH end - with dog holes in both lined up with those in the bench. I think I may chicken out of going for the traditional exposed and through dovetails on the French version in favour of his blind mortices and tenons - I'd hate to screw them up as the timber for one of these benches is not cheap over here.

The lid on tool tray underneath in the model in the Roy Underhill video seems like a nifty move - it could be split into easy hinge up sections too to ease access. The flush lid means chips can just be brushed off, and at the same time it takes up no more space than the stretchers. Chris' removable planks in the floor also ease cleaning. Plus (while Roy Underhill didn't do so) the storage downstairs maybe provides the option to eliminate the tool tray in the top surface.

Good luck with yours Steven.

ian