Split top roubo with homemade vises


Bill Tarbell

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I'm finally getting around to building my workbench.  I have the bulk of the plans drawn up in sketchup.  I still need to draw up the cabinet/drawers, but you can download it and take a look here:

 

- Sketchup drawing

 

 

This is my first large woodworking project.  I figured i'd 'blog' my progress and describe how i approached things so that the more experienced folk can chip in some tips and suggestions on how I can improve.  Perhaps my step-by-step walkthrough accompanied by your suggestions may help other new woodworkers as well.

 

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I decided to go with a leg vise complimented by a wagon vise.  I bought some 1" acme rod, a nut, and flange-mounted bearings for each (wagon is left hand threaded).  The leg vise will utilize a chain to keep the chop parallel to the leg.  I got the idea from a kit that Jim Ritter designed and sells.  However, i'll be building my own to keep costs down.  You can read more about Jim's design and purchase a kit here.  

 

I found that handwheels for the vises were a bit pricier than i'd like, so i'll be turning a wheel on the wood lathe and then carving out the spokes.  If that doesn't turn out well or is too light then i may break down and buy steel handwheels.. hoping not though.

 

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For the gap stop (or whatever you call the thing that fills the gap on a split top), I wanted to have a design where i didn't need to flip the thing over to present the plane stop.  I put two blocks on the bottom surrounding each table support.  Between these blocks is bare surface as well as a 1/8" pad.  To have the gapstop be flush with the table you would slide it to the right until it hits the stop block causing it to rest on the bare area.  To raise it by 1/8th" to act as a plane stop you'd simply push it to the left and it will ride up the pad's ramp until you feel it hit the stop block.  

 

There's also a perpendicular plane stop that will rest in dog holes.  For face grain planing i'm not so sure whether i'd want to set it up in the wagon vise or use the plane stops.  I figure i'll try them both out and see which is better.  I assume wide boards or boards with a mitered end would benefit from the plane stops and rectangular boards would use the wagon vise.  Anyone else have any input on this area?

 

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The storage system will basically be a box that sits under the table top and has ~8" of empty space above it.  We're planning to move in roughly a year, so the storage will not be permanently attached to the bench since it will likely make it too heavy to easily move.  Likewise, the bench top will just be fit with dry tenoned with the legs. If it has any wobble then it will also get bolts through the horizontal supports.

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I started off by making the legs.  The majority of the bench will be made of red oak.  I'm fairly sure i have enough oak, but just to be safe i decided to use up some poplar i had for the 2 back legs.  The legs are roughly 5" x 3" x 34".  I figured i'd make them as thick and wide as possible with the stock i had, so the sized vary a small bit - except for the length, of course.

 

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1.  I started by cutting the pieces to rough dimensions.  It's a pain to cross cut large boards on my basement table saw, they were too thick for the jig, and i don't much like using the circ on thick boards either.  I decided to go ahead and just use the hand saw.  The wife was downstairs playing with the lathe so it made for nice company.

 

2. After they were cut i went and jointed one face side of each board until they were flat.  I didn't joint an edge side since i figured it'd just need jointed again later since i was gluing multiple pieces together.

 

3. I then ran them through the planer with the freshly jointed side down until all of the rough cut surface was gone from the other face side.

 

4.  I glued up the boards one leg at a time.  I really need to get more clamps.

 

5.  I waited til the following day so the glue would be completely dry.  A couple of the legs had slight shifting in the glued boards (i should have paid more attention when gluing).  I used a hand plane to the flatten one of the side edges of each board.  I probably could have skipped the hand plane and just ran then over the jointer but my logic was that the hand plane blade is easier to sharpen than the jointer and it would have taken quite a number of passes on the jointer to smooth them out.

 

6.  I jointed one side each of each leg.

 

7.  Next up was rip the remaining side on the table saw.  I did this in two passes, flipping the board over between passes. (double-checked the fence was square first)

 

8.  Went back to the jointer to clean up the freshly cut side edge from the table saw.

 

9.  and finally i used the cross cut sled to nip off one end of each leg.  I figure i'll trim off the other side whenever i'm ready to cut the tenons.

 

Here's the resulting legs:

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hand planing without a workbench is a mighty big pain.  To get it done i used a folding craft table.  I clamped a length-wise board in the middle of the table and then clamped a cross board on top of it to pin it down and also provide a rear plane stop.  The board still moved around on me so i clamped the board to the length-wise stop and this helped.  The table didn't really weigh enough to stay put though, so i had to wrap my leg around the table leg in order to keep it relatively stationary.  I can't wait to have a real workbench.

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I'm looking forward to this Bill, especially the vices (still can't make up my mind).

 

I've just been watching Shannon build his bench (full build) and I like his idea of replacing the dead man with a sliding leg vise.

 

Thanks for linking the videos.  I am watching the sliding leg vise video now and already came across something of interest.  I was planning on making my deadman slide with a perfect triangle rail and groove.  Shannon cut a flat, which seems like a great idea.  My triangle's tip would have likely cracked off at some point if i had left it as a true triangle.

 

I like the idea of the sliding leg vise, but i'm not sure i'd use it enough to justify it over a deadman.  Granted, i'm not really sure how much i'll use any aspect of the bench since i've yet to actually tackle any large projects yet.

 

EDIT:  I wonder if the chop and handle on the sliding leg vise get in the way when you're planing a longer board.  It seems like you would bump your hip against it when pushing the plane through.  

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Hi Bill, this is looking good. and I think you're going to love having this new tool. You mentioned that you did not want to flip the gap stop over to use it as a plane stop. You may want to consider simply building a taller gap stop and notching the bottom of the gap stop to sit on the stretchers. That way, it will be flush with the bench top when the notches are sitting down on your stretchers. To use it as a plane stop, simply lift it and slide it a couple of inches to the left or right. It will stick up as high as your notches are deep. (it looks like you are already accomplishing this, but with parts added to the gap stop.)

 

Anyway, it's looking good so far, I'm subscribing! :)

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Hi Bill, this is looking good. and I think you're going to love having this new tool. You mentioned that you did not want to flip the gap stop over to use it as a plane stop. You may want to consider simply building a taller gap stop and notching the bottom of the gap stop to sit on the stretchers. That way, it will be flush with the bench top when the notches are sitting down on your stretchers. To use it as a plane stop, simply lift it and slide it a couple of inches to the left or right. It will stick up as high as your notches are deep. (it looks like you are already accomplishing this, but with parts added to the gap stop.)

 

Anyway, it's looking good so far, I'm subscribing! :)

 

That's actually how i had initially designed it.  I had the gap stop taller and designed a dado that would allow it to sit flush with the table.  I still had the stop blocks so that it wouldn't slide too far.  I also had the chamfered edge so that i could slide the gapstop sideways instead of having to lift it up.  I assumed that the length of the gap stop would make it a sizable pain in the rump to lift up both ends at the same time in order to move it sideways.   The ramps mean i'll only need to reach over to one side of the bench to push it over into position.  Here's how it looked with the chamfered dado:

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My concern here was that the chamfered edge may wear down over time and not slide as effectively. This was why i had redesigned it so that there is that glued on pad instead.  In retrospect, the glued on pad would likely be just as much of a pain to replace if its chamfer were to wear down.  I could make the pad taller and attach it with counter sunk screws like the picture below.  I'm not sure if it's worth the effort.

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Question:  If i chamfer both the gapstop and the cross member, do you think the chamfers will eventually wear down so the gapstop doesn't ramp up as easily anymore?  Both materials are planned to be red oak.  The cross member will obviously be cross grained. The gapstop pad piece was planned to be long grained so it wore slower.  ie:  is attaching via screws a waste of effort?

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I was able to mill and glue up the short cross members tonight.  The thin ones for the bottom of the bench are a bit over 1" thick and the thicker ones that the top will rest on are about 2.25" thick.  I've found that the plane shavings make a nice area to set these freshly milled pieces onto so that air gets to all sides.

 

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The next step is to cut the stringers and then do the mortise and tenons.  I've never done m&t before so it'll be a new experience.  I laid them out in sketchup first to get a better idea of what areas may be weak.  This resulted in moving the mortises in the top a bit farther away from the outer edges to prevent blowout.  Likewise, i put the cross member mortises a bit lower on the leg so it didn't weaken the base of the tenon above it.  I'm not sure if this was necessary or even a good idea.  Here are some images .. anyone have any thoughts?

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I had a bit of time to work on the bench tonight.  I milled the remaining pieces of the frame.  I also cut the tenons on the top of the 4 legs.   The shoulders are 1/2" on three sides and 1" on one side.  The 1" shoulder will go on the outward facing sides of the legs and was so that the mortise walls in the top won't be too thin.  You'll likely notice that the legs are all the same thickness.  They're all the same width and will all be flush with the outside edge of the top, but i figured i'd make them as thick as my stock allowed rather than wasting the material.  Oak in front and the 2 poplar in the back.  The thickest oak leg will be for the leg vise.

 

To cut the shoulders i used a stop block on my cross cut sled.  To waste out the cheeks i just made a zillion cuts on the table saw.. with a thin kerf blade. This took forever!  I wanted to keep using my cross cut sled and didn't want to widen the kerf with a dado or regular kerf blade.  I really should either make a tenon jig or another cross cut sled for the dado stack.  Thankfully, the cheeks turned out pretty flat even though it took so many cuts.  I started cleaning them up with a 2" chisel and a block plane.  I eventually abandoned the block plane and solely used the chisel.  I didn't have an effective and convenient way to clamp the boards down which made the block plane a pain to use.  These are the first tenons i've ever made.

 

Next steps will be to cut the tenons on the remaining frame pieces (i think i'm going to build a tenon jig first).  Then make the mortises and use the drill press to make the holes for the leg vise.  Once all that is done and a passes a test fit then i'll glue it all up and move on to the top.

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I guess i'll add some updated sketchup pics.  I had spent a bit of time designing the storage area and how it'll rest on the workbench's frame.  I ended up adding 4 slats for it to rest on.  The slats will be flush with the front rail but the back rail will sit higher.  This way i can carefully set it on the front of the slats and then push it back until it is fully seated against the back rail.

 

The left side will have a double-door cabinet that's about 19" wide with a 2nd shelf.  There will be two sets drawers. The larger ones are about 15" wide and the smaller are about 9" wide. They range in height from 6" to 3".

 

The top of the cabinets will have some border rails so that i can toss stuff on it without worrying about it falling off the sides or back.  I also added a set of shelves under the wagon vise.  I've never seen anyone do this before but it seemed like perfectly good space so i thought I might as well try to utilize it for storage.  I'm not quite sure if i want to make the shelf brackets out of wood or just use standard metal ones.

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