Neander Roubo workbench build pictures: phase 1 More pics

[Mike Allen1010]

After some sharpening with slip stones Forstner bits on the drill press roughed out leg mortises for the stretchers with final chopping/pairing (I was really wishing for some Ashley Isles big Mortice chisels , as my old English style Mortice chisels didn't hold their edge long).


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Sawing the through tenons for the benchtop; started with a shop made backsaw, but switched to a full size rip saw after completing a couple.

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Here's the completed legs were through tenons and final stretcher mortises after some cleanup planing.


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Sawing the 4 shouldered tenons for the stretchers was actually fun -- needed a stepladder for the long front and back stretchers.



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Next post I will include some pictures of the benchtop stock dimensioning, glue up and rough surfacing/trimming.

Thanks for looking,
Mike

[Mike Allen1010]

It took two days to hand plane the face surfaces of the maple boards prior to lamination and to align them so the grain was running in the same direction. Lots of sharpening for my number 5, 6 and 8 bench planes and lots of Advil for me! I glued them up in three subassemblies of four -- five boards each:

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you can see my chicken scratch assembly notes for the final glue up:

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The final benchtop glue up came out fairly flat due to all the sweat prior to assembly but there was still lots of work to do to get to a flat surface. The pictures below before-and-after rough surface planing show the saving shavings resulting from almost a full day of planing to get to a roughly flat surface:

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Here are some pics with winding stacks checking for twist. At this stage I could finally get an appreciation for the final benchtop surface and was glad I went with the maple as it left a nice tight grain, light colored surface::

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Here's some pics trimming the tail end of the benchtop -- it came out pretty straight and square after some careful work with the trustee Disston #12, 7 PPI and LV bevel up Jack for final end grain smoothing.

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Next time I'll show some pics of cutting the through mortises in the benchtop and final assembly of benchtop and undercarriage -- finally starting to look like a bench!

Thanks for looking,
Mike

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Looking a lot nicer than my half-assed in progress bench. (I should have gone for full assed) Congrats. I bet you'll enjoy it. It looks like it's coming along great.

Amazing how much shavings can come from a few boards, isn't it? I've been saving mine in paper bags to take down to the dump (the local power station burns them for electricity - I find this amusing) and I have to make a trip every week lately.

[Mike Allen1010]

The assembled benchtop was way too heavy to get to the drill press so used the auger brace and bit drilling from both sides to rough out the mortises (this must be why old-time cabinetmakers didn't need a weight room!).

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Sawing and chipping out the waste in the dovetail through mortises in the benchtop -- my excuse to get a router plane. Working upside down and backwards on the bottom of the bench called for redundant marking out and triple checking to make sure I was cutting mortises for the appropriate leg tenons - nevertheless, I caught myself almost screwing this up multiple times!:

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Dry fitting legs to the through mortises of benchtop. They came out fairly straight and plum after some final trimming with a shoulder plane.

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Here's some pics after the frantic final glue up including pegging the tenons (BTW what is the open time for Titebond glue?!):

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Here's the first picture of the assembled bench right side up. This is the first time I felt like this might work out after all:

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Trimming of the through tenons- joints came out tighter than expected. I still added some wedges from the top to close up gaps:

Next time I'll post pictures of the vices, sliding dead man, shelf and final flattening/finishing.

Thanks for looking, Mike

[Chris Griggs]

Sweet! Real nice writeup Mike. And one heck of a nice bench.

[Brian Yates]

I'm planning on doing this in the spring, thanks for sharing your experience. Your doing a great job!

Brian