Faux-Roubo bench build - quick question

[steve355]

Looks great. How are your planes coming along?

Hi Adam

The planes have gone on hold for a few weeks while I do the bench. But the first thing I made on the new bench… just playing with the round I made, trying to tune it better, a cove moulding.

Now I have a bench that can properly hold work like that, the sky’s the limit. But the overall project is to be able to do traditional joinery, and I’m going to need the planes to do that. I was going to make a window next, however I’ve realised that the planes I have won’t really do the job, so planes and mouldings are the next job.

Cheers
Steve

 

[imageel]

Hi Steve - good looking bench and a great solution to the achieve the depth required for the tail vice!
I built my bench back in 2011 and ended up building the main benchtop out of 40mm depth material and then added a 100mm x 100mm apron on the front to not only give sufficient depth to mount the Veritas tail vice but also to provide good rigidity for the dogs and it seems to have held together ok aside from a slight crack appearing on the joint on one of the front members which had some rather wild grain and thus has warped, however it is still pretty rigid and solid when hand planing larger pieces. I built close fitting drawers into the base for storage etc however it seems to work well to open one up and blindly feel for the end of the dogs and push the appropriate one up when needed!
How did you afix the bench-top to the base? I was concerned about likely movement so ended up just using 2 @25mm square Sapele pegs to locate the front allowing the rear to just float upon the base and this seems to work well, albeit I can only just lift the completed top off when on the rare occasions it needs to be moved.
Ed

 

[steve355]

Hi Steve - good looking bench and a great solution to the achieve the depth required for the tail vice!
I built my bench back in 2011 and ended up building the main benchtop out of 40mm depth material and then added a 100mm x 100mm apron on the front to not only give sufficient depth to mount the Veritas tail vice but also to provide good rigidity for the dogs and it seems to have held together ok aside from a slight crack appearing on the joint on one of the front members which had some rather wild grain and thus has warped, however it is still pretty rigid and solid when hand planing larger pieces. I built close fitting drawers into the base for storage etc however it seems to work well to open one up and blindly feel for the end of the dogs and push the appropriate one up when needed!
How did you afix the bench-top to the base? I was concerned about likely movement so ended up just using 2 @25mm square Sapele pegs to locate the front allowing the rear to just float upon the base and this seems to work well, albeit I can only just lift the completed top off when on the rare occasions it needs to be moved.
Ed

Hi Ed

That’s really interesting. Your vise is different to mine. You just have the ACME screw section. I opted for the next level up, which has a fixing plate and an enclosure, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but required significant metalwork to fit. Yours looks altogether simpler and cheaper too.

My top is fixed to the bench with large tenons through the bench top, planed flush, kind of Roubo style but without the fancy dovetails. The idea was that it would be possible to disassemble it but the tenons are so tight that it wouldn’t be easy.

If I had my time again I’d probably do it more like yours. I intended to do my dog holes like yours but ended up using my mortiser to put some 3/4” square holes in a piece of timber to save time.

All a learning experience, I’m glad I made it from cheap wood, one day perhaps I’ll make another in Beech and do a much better job.

Steve

 

[imageel]

Hi Steve - just looked at the Axi site and see the one you have, I guess kinda horses for courses as to which to use, with mine I effectively had to fab the guide upon which the tail slides - that's what the stepped lip is for behind the screw, and this allowed me to screw the bottom wooden plate on allowing for disassembly should it ever be required. I did wonder about the strength of the two mounting stanchions however in practice I've never experienced any noticeable flex and also wondered about the longevity of the slide and had envisioned perhaps having to plane it after extended use to reduce any wear induced slop, however that has not proved necessary nor have I had to re-apply any lubricant to the threads over the years I guess because little detritus can get in there. The timber I used was American Maple which I got relatively cheaply at the time, so it is quite hard!

I can't take any credits for the design - I shamelessly copied it off of pictures of a one time poster on this forum (Lord Kitchener??) and saw it in some of his workshop posts.