stevecatts

You hit the nail on the head re: the bench thickness. My concern is holdfasts start to get a little "iffy" when the top is over 4". Thus the need to plane down. That's lots of bags of chips from the planer!

Great question Mark. That is true for LVL which is a bunch of thin layers oriented vertically the depth of the member, glued and compressed to cure. A GluLam is nothing more than a stack of 2x whatevers built up in a factory setting no different than we would do in our shops.

Hi All! I'll be starting on a Roubo before long. I look forward to the challenges of the joinery much more than gluing up the slab(s). I have wondered if any of you have, or know of anyone that has purchased SYP GluLam beams for use as the top. The beams would be on their side instead of upright. They are available 3-1/2" and 5-1/2" widths (thickness if a bench slab) and various depths (widths for a bench) that would work for a split top or a single slab top. I want my top to be 4" or so thick so I would need to run a 5-1/2" through the planer. Beams can be delivered cut to a precise length. I'm not sure about the price - sure it would be a premium but would sure save a lot of time. I would still need to glue up the legs and stretchers but they are less troublesome than the slabs. Help me out folks, am I overthinking this? Should I not be stressing over making my own slabs? Thanks

Do you have space in your shop for an assembly table for general tasks and your Roubo for joinery and planning work? If so, you might be able to meet all your needs with two work surfaces. Steve

Hi all, I am in the final throws of making a commitment for big shop upgrades. I will be able to spend what I need to to do it right. For Owners of jointer/planer combos (A3-31 or 41, FS30, AD531, AD741), I would love to know of your motivations for making these machines a part of your shop. Quality of the Euro Machines? Space efficiency? In general, if a craftsman wants the use of 12-16" jointing capacity (at a given price point of $4-7k), the choice is a European combo machine or separates (12" parallelogram jointer and 15" planer) from an imported source (Grizzly or Jet I suppose). With the separates comes convenience by not having to make conversions but some step down in quality and the typical requirement to put some time into finishing the manufacturing on your own. For those who have made this decision, if space were no issue for you, would you still place higher value on the combination machine you own (which speaks highly of your appreciation of the machine quality) or would you opt for the greater convenience of separates although giving up on quality and engineering of the machine? Thanks for your inputs! Steve