I have often looked with great awe at the massive
majesty of the Roubo workbench.

In my office I have a framed poster of Plate 11 from Andre Roubo's 18th century masterpiece "L'Art du Menuisier".

This plate is titled "Vue Interieure de la Boutique d'un Menuisier" ..."interior view of the shop of the craftsman".

There is great detail in the bench and the bench hardware at the bottom of the plate.

After ordering and receiving the Veritas vises from Lee Valley, we examined the hardware and we reconsidered the vise locations. We decided to put the quick release on the end and extend the the chop and jaw to 23 3/4 to cover the entire end.

We moved the twin screw to the front, aligned it with the left end, moved the handles to 24 inches on center to make use of the full width of the unit and extended the jaw to run 30 inches.

Chris Schwarz' book had a lot of great information...but the greatest lesson I took from the book was that the designer/builder needs to decide what he specifically wants in his particular, personal bench.

Schwarz provided a great road map for creating a proper design...it involved "18 Principles" to consider...

listed below are the items he suggested for consideration and our decisions

#1 always overbuild the bench, the base…

5 x 5 legs; 4 x 3.75 stretchers, plus shelf and deadman

Veritas Quick-Release end vise

Veritas Twin-Screw front vise, 24 inch center

The yellow pine purchase was made after checking all the local big box stores to find the best selection of dry lumber. We bought 2 x 12 x 12 boards because the larger boards typically have fewer flaws than the smaller boards. Because the turnover rate is lower they are typically dryer as well.

I found the best batch and we purchased fourteen units. This is enough material so that we can minimize problems. We also plan to make an assembly table and two saw benches out of this same batch.

Here are the boards in temporary storage in the garage.

The boards were cross cut into either 6 foot long or 5 and 7 foot long batches.

This was done in the garage using Festool equipment on the BenchMark cutting table.

After the cutting session I now had a taller stack of shorter 2 x 12s.

These had to then be hauled to the shop and then taken into the attic for storage.

Here is the first layer of the yellow pine storage stack in the shop attic.

Boards are stacked 4 across on stickers for air flow. These boards are being stored for climate acclimation.

The hard maple slabs can be seen at the rear of the stack.

The stack then seasoned in the shop for about a month.

On the Saturday before Christmas, James had some time and in about 5 hours we jointed one face and one edge of all of the stock.

This made the "stack in the corner" suddenly become a hole...

After we jointed each piece on the Powermatic...on average, at least four passes each board ...we marked the board and put it in a stack as to purpose...legs, stretchers, and top.

On the second day we planed the other face to a final dimension of 1.25 inches for all of the stock.

The remaining edge will be ripped to arrive at the final width dimension based on whether it will be used in a leg, a stretcher or the top.

Most of the boards used in the leg and stretcher pieces will be ripped to the same dimensions.

The one exception is the front piece of the front stretcher had to be bevelled because the top of the piece will be the runner for the Sliding Deadman.

This is a dry run of the the four layer 5 inch leg with the three layer 3.75 inch stretcher.

Leg Glue-Ups

After testing all fits it was timeto glue up...James had built two glue-up base units. They will hold the slabs off the assemby table.

All four leg units will be glued-up and clamped at the same time.

Large Bessey clamps will be paired top and bottom at four structural points to apply pressure from side to side.

Three clamping cauls will hold the pieces in place top to bottom.

When the legs came out of the glue-up stack there was substantial dried glue trails that were squeezed out by the clamps.

These were lightly cleaned up by chisel and plane and then the face was jointed on the Powermatic. A clean face is shown on the top.

Here are the four legs. Each has a mortise ready for the front and rear stretchers.

The far left shown is the front left leg. It has a short shoulder on the front face to accomodate the 8 1/8 inch hardwood vise chop.

Top Sections Glue-Up

After the 19 boards that will make up the top had been milled and ripped, they were sorted to provide optimum grain pattern, knot avoidance, etc.

The glue-up process will be done in three stages. From front to back there will be a 5 board, 5 board, 5 board and 4 board sub-assembly.

After the four sub-assemblied are dry...they will be jointed and planed. Then the 5 + 5 board units will be glued together and the 5 + 4 unit will be joined. In a final glue up, the ~center-line joint will be glued and all 19 boards will be in the slab.

Here is the beginning of the first glue up. The four sub-assemblies will all be in the clamped unit but each sub-assembley will stand alone.

Adding pressure across the top of the assembly.

The glue drip out was substantial.

In homage of the adage..."you can never have too many clamps..."

This glue-up took...four 6 inch Bessey bar clamps, six 12 inch Bessey bar clamps, four 24 Jorgensen bar clamps, one Jorgensen pipe clamp, five 24 inch Bessey K body clamps, two 24 inch Irwin parallel clamps, one 24 inch Bessey Revo clamp, two 28 inch Irwin parallel clamps, two 48 inch Bessey K body clamps, two shop made cauls, one Bowclamp caul, and two shop made spacer bases.

The glue drip clean-up on these units will take awhile...plus the temperature at the time of this picture was ~27 degrees...all that metal will be cold.

After removing the clamps, we cleaned up the glue lines and then jointed the top surface of each of the four units.

Then we carefully squared the adjacent face that will be a glue surface in the next step.

Here we are pushing a five-board slab across the jointer.

The four sub-assemblies are checked for thickness consistency.

These four units are then glued into two slabs.

In comparison to the previous glue up, there were only two glue lines so it went very quickly and there was very little time pressure.

Later in the day (~5 hrs of drying time), we were able to pull off the clamps.

The two half-top sub-assemblies were then surface planed to clean up the glue lines and make both slabs have a consistent thickness.

The slabs were now 12+ inches wide so we were no longer able to joint them on the Powermatic.

We were just able to surface plane the sub-assemblies in the DeWalt.

The length of the slab will be trimmed to ~71 inches to make the ends even.

Stretchers glue up

The last stage of gluing was the two long front and back stretchers and the two shorter side stretchers.

After drying, the stretchers would be machine jointed and planed to final dimensions.

The one exception was the top of the front stretcher. Due to the bevelled top edge of the stretcher that will be the rail for the Sliding Deadman. The top of this stretcher was planed with a #6 fore plane.

Outside edge view of the through tenon. This edge will be chamfered and sit about 1/8 inch proud after the draw bore pins and wedges are pounded in.

After the drawbore pin holes were drilled, the tenon was pounded back into the mortise and pulled tight with long bar clamps.

Then the drill bit was placed in the hole and tapped with a hammer to make a precise mark on the tenon.

Then the center mark was moved 1/8 of an inch in toward the shoulder and the holes were drilled into the tenon.

At glue up... the drawbore pins are pounded through the holes on the outside face of the leg, then through these holes in the tenon and then finally into the holes on the backside of the mortise. This action will align the holes somewhat and thus draw the joint tight.

Next step was to make the mortises for the side stretchers. The stretcher tenons and mortises were create by design during glue up.

These mortises had to be laid out and then material removed. The depth of the mortise would break out into the space of the existing through mortise.

After layout, most of the material was "hogged out" using a 1 1/4 inch Forstner bit on the drill press.

First a hole was bored at each end of the mortise.

Successive bores are made between the first two holes. This leaves some side material to pare down and the corners to be squared.

The bottom of this hole is a "sacrificial" tenon that allows the bottom of the mortise to be formed without spelching into an open cavity.

This tenon is removed after drilling and chiseling.

Here is image of paring work with a large becnh chisel

Sacrificial tenon is seen at bottom right.

A wide variety of hand tools and techniques are used to get the mortise right.

My favorite tool in this process was a Nishiki Kinari Japanese paring chisel.

Early in the process we had laid out all four legs in an easy orientation stack and then marked the bottoms of the legs with a red triangle.

Between most steps we restacked and verified the triangle as a way to reorient all the faces.

Bottoms of the legs ready to go.

A final step before the legs are ready for assembly...the front right leg face is to have three dog holes for use with hold-downs.

The five inch thick leg had the holes bored with a 3/4 inch auger.

The worker had to stand on a step ladder to gain elevation for the work.

Then the pins were pounded in the holes.

Next morning, the first unit was removed and the second unit was assembled in the same manner, then clamped and glued.

View of the glued and clamped base assembly. This view is of the rear of the workbench.

After the final glue-up, the full slab was moved to the Festool MFT3 table.

We had to make a clean cut-off on each end of the slab.

We then aligned the Festool saw guide rail to those knife nicks.

After layout we began the mortise process...starting with a 1.25 inch Forstner bit to hog out as much as possible.

We used a Makita AC powered drill to increase power. It has a side handle that made it easier to apply pressure and to keep the unit square.

An array of bench chisels, paring chisels, corner chisel, mortise floats and various types of pounders were used to pare and square the mortises.

This image shows the rear two mortises completed.

One of the mortises will lay behind the front vise chop. Thus it was created as an open mortise on the front edge in this setup.

I used a Veritas cross cut back saw to cut out the thin wall on the forward edge.

After all four mortises passed the test fit, we put the base assembly back on and pounded the tenons in about a half inch to make sure all was well.

Unit was then pulled back out.

Next will come the breadboard end treatment on the right end.

The 8 1/8 inch wide board posed a problem. This chop will be wider than the cutting head on my Powermatic.

If we wanted to use the power tools, we would have to to use a workaround that we had read about.

First we had to break all OSHA mandated codes and remove the protective cutting head cover...exposing ourselves to massive danger...

We then ran the slab over the jointer numerous times until we had a nice jointed surface for about 7 1/2 inches of the board.

We then turned the slab over and placed the clean portion of the slab onto a 1/2 sheet of plywood. The protrusion is hanging proud on the far edge.

Now we can plane a clean surface that will be parallel to the reference edge that we jointed.

Here is the slab as it starts to become planed smooth.

After this face is done, we flip the slab and plane that side till the protrusion is gone.

Those reference surfaces will go against the fence of the jointer and the edges can then be squared.

Here are the two slabs for the front chops. Beautiful wood.

Thanks Tom...

We then began the process of the breadboard end of the workbench. The tenon is to be 3/4 inch by 1/2 inch. We decided to use the T75 track saw to cut a kerf to define the line. We used the 1/2 depth kerf to practice on the bottom.

The top kerf on the top surface of the slab will be that 1/2 inch...the bottom will be much deeper.

We then routed the waste.

This gave us a nice clean look when we tested the process on the bottom side.

However, when we cut the final depth of the kerf (~2.5 inches) on the bottom and then started routing away the waste, we had a major blow out. We totally underestimated the powerful torque of the OF 1400 router and when it grabbed on a glue line it ripped off a huge chunk. The end sliver was vulnerable because it was unsupported after the deep kerf cut.

Fortunately the blowout went down only as far as our tenon edge.

To fix the issue we temporarily screwed on a ledger board that defined the tenon edge. I then used that horizontal platform as a guide for the Bad Axe 16 inch tenon saw.

This massive back saw is filed to a 12 ppi hybrid cut that did a good job on all the end grain and was the perfect tool for the job.

Living up to a personal philosophyof life..."I screw up a lot, but I recover nicely"...we did recover well.

The bottom, deep cut is done...now to flip and finish with saw kerfs, chisel and skew plane.

After the tenon was cut, we had to route the 3/4 groove that would serve as the mortise. It was a stopped mortise so that the front edge would be clean.

To accomplish this we used a 13/15 inch Forstner bit to create a slightly oversized hole. This made it easy to drop the chop down onto the bit. The groove was open at the far side of the chop. This allows for some seasonal movement.

I laid out the spacing on the inner chop for the bolt hardware that will secure the chop to the end of the slab.

Each hole had a counterbore large enough and deep enough to accomodate the washer and for a socket to fit nicely into the hole to turn the hex head.

This is the dry fit.

The two middle bolt holes were centered directly above where the main center screw will run.

Following the instructions that came with the vise, we made a jig that easily allowed us to line lay out the bore holes that would match up with the hardware bolt holes.

The jig had a 3/8 dowel that would slip into the bolt hole, the second dowel had a hole in it that allowed you to line it up underneath the slab and then tap a scribe to mark the center of the bore hole.

This type of hardware is normally used to connect bed frames and thus they are called bed bolts.

The brass nuts will slip down into the hole and allow the threaded bolt to be secured.

After the holes were milled, the inner chop was bolted and glued onto the end of the slab, completing the bread board end.

Then a template was placed on the bottom side of the slab and holes for the lag bolts were laid out.

After the end vise was securely attached, the maple edges were planed.

All of the chop dimensions had been slightly oversized and were then planed to exact joints.

The first object held in the end vise is the inner chop that will be part of the front twin screw vise system.

It will be longer and taller than the end chops.

To prep the large inner chop...five counterbores and through drilled holes were put in a plane that would drill into the midway point of the side of the top slab.

The chop was clamped to the spot and the through bore holes were marked by tapping the bit.

The next prep work on the bottom of the slab was to put holes into the left front leg tenon for two lag bolts that will connect the tenon to the back wall of the mortise. This is the "open sided mortise" that will be behind the vise jaw.

The first thing to do was to counterbore and then drill the holes for the hex heads and washers of the lag bolts.

Clamps were run from the stetchers to the top slab for the glue-up.

At this point the workbench really became a reality. The bench was born...and the all important mantra was uttered..."it ain't going nowhere..."

Spacers were added to the back of the inner chop to provide for the proper thickness to accomodate the hardware.

The screw assemblies were installed.

One of the things that we wanted to do to the outer jaw was to bevel the inside face of the jaw so that when tightened the chops would grab at the top first, rather than lower in the jaws.

We had read of a way to bevel the inside that involved glueing a strip on the front of the vise and then running it through the planer at an angle.

We did not like the idea of making the front of the vise jaw ugly...so we screwed a temporary board to the side of the jaw that was 1/4 inch proud along the run.

Then we put the jaw into the planer with the elevated strip facing down.

We then ran the unit through the planer five passes and thus put a bevel that dropped the inner bottom of the jaw 1/4 inch over its 8+ inch run.

After finishing the milling on the outer jaw it was time to install the two screws into the threaded receivers that were previously installed on 24 inch centers.

Once they were in we drilled the holes to attach them to the outer jaw. Then a chain was installed to run from one screw to the other.

Next phase was to put in the lower shelf. Twelve boards were milled to a width of 4 1/8 inches and a thickness of 1 1/4. Top edges were chamfered.

The final prep was to drill a hole at both ends of the board. The centered hole was drilled along with a counter bore for square drive screws. A jig was set up on the drill press and this helped make quick work of the 24 holes.

Then all surfaces were coated with a BLT rub and installed.

The boards were screwed down to the ledger boards that were installed on the inner edge of the long stretchers and the surfaces of the boards sit about 1/8 inch below the stretchers.

The two end boards were trimmed to install tightly around the legs.

Here is the finished product.

After the success we had with the interior face bevel trick on the big vise I realised that I wanted the end vise to be bevelled.

I pulled the end vise outer jaw and did the same bevel trick on the inner face of that chop.

Then I put a chamfer on the two outer edges of the outer face to ease the edge. I did this on the table saw.

All surfaces were sanded one last time and then had a coat of linseed oil spread and the unit was reinstalled.

The final product is ready for service.

A few cosmetic planing, sanding and oiling sessions remain and a Sliding Deadman option remains a possible future addition, but the workbench is 100% ready for duty.

The first use...