After thinking about building a new bench for years now; making a move, buying vise hardware in 2020 and letting it age to perfection in my home office, the final straw was the credenza last year. The shortcomings of my work methods with my old bench became pretty apparent (ok, irritant), as did it's 5' length (sized for my last shop). I finally did something about it. As you can see, it's a roubo. I found that I never used my end vise, I didn't like storage under my old bench (things were always in the vise when I wanted something from the drawers), and I wanted a simple bench with a solid planing stop. So I found that red oak was currently the cheapest option I had locally, and went and bought a hundred and fifty(ish) bd ft of it and a gallon of PVA glue.
The whole thing is pretty much just half-thickness draw bored mortise and tenons. I didn't bother with glue (after the laminations of the top and the legs).
So that's what I have. So far, I'm very happy with it. At least while dimensioning the shelf boards. I'm very happy to have two benches, and I think I'll make a low bench next.
Oh, and it's so much easier to build a bench, when you already have a bench.
Things I did differently than my last bench build? Last time I was overly concerned about flattening the bottom of the top and actually broke out the jointer plane. This time, I just traversed with a jack, got it all flat, then just hit the sections where the legs mount. The same is kind of true of the top of the bench. I really only focused on getting the front half flat. The back just went along for the ride (although, as a consequence it's pretty flat). Basically, I've gotten better about where I spend my time and efforts. At least, I think so.
Now I get to rearrange the shop, again.
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Originally Posted by David Zor
