I've been planning a slab top Roubo build for awhile. Initial posts will document my progress so far. I expect progress to be slow based on available time. Comments, criticisms, and suggestions are most welcome and highly valued. I am learning as I go along.
This was my lumber stack at our last house just after it had been sawn:
Bench Lumber Stack.jpg
The top two slabs are 6" thick, 9 feet long, and were about 23 inches in total width.
After one year, a cross-town move, and a third child, I got to a point where I had a free spot to work and could no longer balance my enthusiasm against the moisture content of the lumber.
Starting with the top, I planed each piece until the joint looked good to my eye. Several days past before I again had the free time to glue the slab. 192 gram strength hide glue was used for the glue-up. Working alone, I quickly applied the hide glue from a warmed squeeze bottle and hoisted the behemoth slabs into place.
Work Bench Glued Up.jpg
I found (too late) during the process that the slabs had gone into wind during the time between planing and glue-up (perhaps due to their moisture content). Despite my best efforts to clamp it out, there was a large gap present on the underside of the bench top which I reasoned shouldn't bother me because I would never see it. Fast forward a few days and this gap opened up at the end:
End Gap.jpg
This gave me a good reason to go back and fix the gap that would have bugged me every time I looked at it. You can see a steamer in the upper right of photo. That was my first approach; it was marginally successful on the ends of the bench but could not overcome the thermal mass of the slab toward the middle.
So I cut it apart:
Sawing In Half.jpg
With the help of my two assistants Porter and Cable (circ saw) I cut as deeply as I could from both sides and sawed out the rest with my 4 PPI rip saw. It was a lot of work.
Lessons learned so far:
- Ash is heavy
- 50F is pretty cold to apply hide glue to large heavy timbers and also position them by yourself, mostly because of Lesson #1
- I need an overhead hoist
- If something looks wrong, it probably is wrong.
At this point, I have the top planed again and glued-up once more.
More pictures to follow.