After a few years of using my current bench, I am ready to upgrade to something that doesn’t rack and wobble when I use it.

The design is based on the french Roubo bench by Schwarz.  I bought his book and have  read through it a few times.  I have also done a bunch of online looking and thinking before I started.

The Plan

My bench will be about 36 1/2″ tall, 30″ wide, and 78″ long.  The exact width, length, depth of everything is fluid until I get all the laminations completed and understand what I am working with.  I want to retain as much wood as possible and don’t want to plane all the weight away.  So some of the details for the stretchers, legs, and risers will come later  The bench will double as an outfeed table like my current bench.  In between the legs there will be a cabinet to house my air compressor, and a bunch of other tools that currently reside under my bench.  I will also build a small cabinet that will reside under the area where the wagon vise is.  It will have a leg vise with the Benchcrafted Criss Cross.  The screws are from Lee Valley.  I am going to start with the legs and base since it takes up less room in the garage than the top.  My wife likes to park in there from time to time.

Start of The Build

I was able to get my hands on some rough sawn birch, probably around 150 bf, for a deal, and I started off by splitting up the lumber by width and length.  This wouldn’t be enough to complete the whole bench, but it was enough to get the legs, stretchers, deadman, and leg vise.  It was also enough to get a portion of the top done, but not all of it.  So, I bought some more birch to finish the top, but at market price.  It was also all over 7 foot long.

Here is a picture of the lumber sorting

One of the things I soon figured out is that I didn’t have many pieces over 6 foot long.  The boards for the top had to be around six and a half feet, so anything over 6 was set aside for the top.  I also had to pick out  the dead man piece and leg vise piece due to the width needed.  Since the lumber is between 4/4 and 5/4, I needed a lot of pieces to get the finished thickness I needed.  Also, I realized that I needed to shorten my legs to be able to utilze the lumber I had most efficiecntly.  I wanted the legs with tenons to be about 37 1/2″ rough.  I couldn’t get this with cutting off the checks off each end which ended being about an inch or two.  So, I shortened up the legs and will have to add some riser blocks to get my final height.

Rough Cut to Length

After separating and marking all the lumber I cut it all down to rough length with my miter saw.  I left an extra 1 1/2 to 2 inches for clamping and squaring.  I made sure to cut about an inch off each end  of the rough board and give the cutoff a good smack to make sure the checks didn’t extend into my useable piece.  After all the cutting I ended up with 26 pieces for my legs, 12 pieces for the short stretchers, 2 pieces for the deadman, and 9 pieces for the long stretchers.  The rest of the lumber is uncut.

Rough Cut to Width

Now onto the rough cut to width.  I utilized my bandsaw and a straightedge to get this accomplished.  Most of the lumber had some sort of crook in it, so I couldn’t use my fence on the bandsaw without making a straigt cut first.   I cut most of the boards 1/2 to 3/4 wider than I wanted to finish wiht.

I bought a 50″ and 24″aluminum straightedge from Amazon (though Taylor Toolworks) and have been using them for a lot lately.

I started with the leg pieces.  Set the fence to 4 7/8, but the straight line on the right side of the blade and then cut the piece to width.  I did the same for the short stretchers, but they were at 4 1/2 wide.  The long stretchers were cut narrower at 3 1/2.

Action Shot

After all that, here is a big pile of rough cut lumber that has to be milled.  The new jointer is waiting anxiously nearby.

Next step is to start milling and laminate some legs and stretchers.