Fellow SMC and NCWW member Maurice Ungaro and I have been talking for over a year about building a couple of Roubo style workbenches, and recently we decided to move forward with on our plans. The project really started back in 2008 when I was contacted by a homeowner who lived in an old neighborhood in downtown Monroe, NC. He had a massive old red oak tree in his front yard that had been struck by lightning and was starting to die. Rather than see the tree go to a landfill, he contacted me to enquire if I was interested in the log (I was). Here is the photo that he sent me of his tree:
Monroe_tree1_b.jpg
The trunk produced a log that had a small end diameter of 54”, a length of 16’ and a large end diameter of almost 72”. The log weighed over 20,000 lbs, and contained some spectacular quartersawn lumber such as these 16” wide examples:
16 inch qsro veneer 3C.jpg
I coordinated with the tree removal company, and a crane was used to load the log onto my trailer, and a second crane was used to unload it back at the farm. Here it sat waiting for an appropriate opportunity.
Scott_monroe_log_2.jpg
In 2011 a gathering of local SMC and NCWoodworker members met at my farm for an event where we slabbed a 14” thick, 48” wide and 6’ long quartersawn red oak piece into some workbench slabs. This event was hosted by myself and SMC member David Nelson. SMC member David Kuzdrall made a spectacular coffee table from one of the slabs which is documented somewhere in previous posts. As part of the slabbing event, we used a crane to set the Monroe log up in the sawmill for future milling.
Picking the log (c).jpg
setting the log (c).jpg
Shortly thereafter I was able to schedule some time to mill the log, producing several wide, 16/4 quartersawn red oak slabs. The slabs averaged 20” wide and 13’7” long.
Milling (c).jpg
After a few years of air drying, a couple of months ago I measured the moisture content and it was below 20% so I slipped the slabs into the kiln to bring them down below 10% as well as to sterilize them.
Yesterday Maurice stopped by the shop and we sorted through the slabs, setting aside one for him (with an alternate) and a couple of bookmatched ones for me. In a couple of weeks we will start the process to surface the slabs and joint two of them together to make the bench tops. We will trim off the punky sapwood and most likely end up with some benches with tops that are in the 24” – 26” wide range. Maurice is planning a bench around 6’6” long, and I am planning to build a 12 footer.
Scott and slabs (c).jpg
Maurice and slabs (c).jpg
Maurice is more of a Neanderthal, and I’m an equipment junky, so the build ought to be interesting by combining our respective methods. The raw slabs weigh around 300 lbs each, so it will be fun to see just how far Maurice wants to take this neander business! As we progress with our builds, I’ll post updates to the thread.
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Originally Posted by Prashun Patel
