Those that have built a Roubo

[wintersedge]

To those that have built a Roubo bench by hand; split top, traditional roubo, plate 11, or Benchcrafted, how many man hours did you put into the project?

 

I am thinking about building a Roubo by hand including the planing. I am curious how many hours I need to seriously block for this endeavor or with my schedule if it is smarter to dimensional the stock by machine. 

 

Either way it is time to upgrade from saw horses.

 

Cheers

[Eric.]

I'm guessing I put in over 100 hours using mostly machines.  I estimate you'll need approximately four to six years to complete one using only hand tools.  Why you'd wanna mill all that lumber by hand is beyond me, but hey, if it floats your boat, go fer it.    There's plenty of opportunity to use hand tools on this build, but milling?  Blah.  No thanks.  Do you wash your clothes in the river, too?

[Llama]

I have to agree with Eric on this one. For the Roubo, there is a lot of milling to be done.

I completely see where you're coming from though. My thought was that I'm building a sweet bench for hand tool use, so I'd feel like I was cheating if I used power tools. I got over that idea rather quickly. I'm not building a Roubo, but I am building the BC Shaker bench. There will be plenty of things to build with hand tools that will be far more enjoyable than milling all that material by hand.

Either way, enjoy and please keep is posted! I love watching bench builds!

[wintersedge]

That was what I was curious about. I have watched a few youtube videos and followed many bench builds but I never paid attention to hours. I was thinking it would be around 100 hours by hand and maybe around 40ish by machine... well time for plan B. 

 

Now I just need to decide between big wooden screw or Benchcrafted.

 

Cheers

 

 

I'm guessing I put in over 100 hours using mostly machines.  I estimate you'll need approximately four to six years to complete one using only hand tools.  Why you'd wanna mill all that lumber by hand is beyond me, but hey, if it floats your boat, go fer it.    There's plenty of opportunity to use hand tools on this build, but milling?  Blah.  No thanks.  Do you wash your clothes in the river, too?

[Eric.]

I was thinking it would be around 100 hours by hand and maybe around 40ish by machine.

 

 

YOU would have to be a machine to finish the split-top Roubo in 40 hours.  No way.  You could definitely get the rear slab, base and shelf done in that time, but there are a lot of time-consuming details that go into the front slab, tail vise and leg vise.  And that's not taking into consideration building the gap-stop, the deadman or the shop-made dogs if you go that route.  Flattening, finishing, suede, etc...the list goes on and on with these things.  I bet I spent 20 hours on the front slab alone.  They are massive endeavors.

[Trip]

==> Roubo bench by hand; split top, traditional roubo, plate 11, or Benchcrafted, how many man hours did you put into the project?

 

eMail Chris Schwarz.  His eMail address is over at Lost Art Press...  He's very good about replying....  He built his French Bench (Roubo) by hand.  I also believe he held a workshop where his students all built one...

 

Now obviously, mere mortals could not build as fast as The Schwarz (insert hushed tone)... So ask him how long his students took...

[derekcohen]

I built mine over 9 weekends using a combination of hand and power tools. I do not see why someone would want to use hand tools only if power is available - this is not religion. Let power do the donkey work. 

 

3 1/2" European Oak top with square dogs (these take much longer to do than drilled holes) and solid Jarrah base (400 lbs all up). 

 

The leg vise was built around a wood screw and the tail vise is a Benchcrafted wagon vise. 

 

 

A record of the build is here (near bottom of index): http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTools/index.html

 

Regards from Perth

 

Derek

[G S Haydon]

If you fancy a roubo by hand make it differently than you would using power tools. The main issue would be the wood sourcing. The big slabs used in the BC builds cost a small fortune but perhaps you could source 2 planks to join. You might want to think of how an old bench looked in contrast to the more modern versions.

This dude is doing a hand tool Roubo, I will confess I have not checked in that much but progress seems brisk and might be worth a look, he has a few vids too http://www.billyslittlebench.com/1/post/2013/11/split-top-roubo-part-1-video.html

[Tom King]

I wouldn't mind building one with hand tools, but I would need the bench before I started.

[Trip]

==> but I would need the bench before I started

 

Actually, Chris Schwarz has a blog entry on that...  Do you need a bench to build a bench?  or something similar... You can probably Google it...

[Dave H]

I built my bench on top of saw horses

[Trip]

Just remembered, Renaissance WW (aka Shannon) built his by hand...  I think he posted a complete write-up on his blog.  I'd drop him a line as well... 

[G S Haydon]

 

 

I built my bench on top of saw horses

 

That's the spirit! Mine is no Roubo but saw horses worked great.

[Barron]

I built along with Marc using pretty much the tools (not exactly the same-mine are a little more budget friendly) he used, so mostly power. I didn't track time, but I don't think it was close to 100 hours, unless you include the time I spent trying to decide what wood to use. Most often I watched the videos a couple of times, spent a few hours in the shop two or three days during the week, then waited for the next video.

Milling took the most time, and while you could do it by hand, I think you would be better off getting the bench done and then spending your time on projects.

I actually did start trying to mill by hand, but quickly moved on to using power. I was lucky in wood selection, and the skip planing technique Marc showed saved a lot of time. However you do it, it is worth the time!

[wintersedge]

I was caught up a little in the Paul Sellers xen of hand tool woodworking. And I also grossly underestimated how much time a Roubo would take. I was mistakenly under the grand idea that I could spend a few hours each night during the holiday season and be done by New Years. 

 

I did pick up Mark's recording of the Roubo project. I am still not 100% sold on Benchcrafted hardware.. I like the big wooden screw and also found http://www.hovartercustomvise.com. Hovarter is about the same price as a Benchcrafted setup. 

 

Indecision is the greatest sin.. I think I am just going to go with Benchcrafted, I have a ton of source material in the guild build, build with SYP and make the cost not so painful, and by the time the hardware gets here I will hopefully have the tops milled and ready for the intricate work.

[Bombarde16]

I have a ton of source material in the guild build, build with SYP and make the cost not so painful, and by the time the hardware gets here I will hopefully have the tops milled and ready for the intricate work.

 

This would be yet another reason to let the machines do the grunt work:  Hand tool milling begs a certain amount of discretion in picking stock.  Mine is built out of discarded construction lumber (Up here, we have "whitewood" which isn't even as good as the SYP you guys get down south) and I did the milling with a lunchbox planer.  Knots, grain reversals, ugly patches...all of it went into the machine.  Once the boards were uniformly flat enough to face glue together to make the top, I stopped.  It tore out in spots and wasn't too good for the knives, but that's what the machine is for.

 

Milling a pile of premium stock by hand would be bad enough...but bashing a bench plane into all the crap one finds in construction lumber?  Life's too short.

[Trip]

I would've liked to build my Roubo by hand, but life's just too short...

 

I got my hands on some rough-sawn 10' x 12" Rock Maple stock for my build... The stock was about 14/4 rough and a heavy 12/4 milled-up...  Milling the stock by hand would just taken far more time than I was willing to invest in this type of project...  and probably would have killed me   Note: you wouldn't believe how heavy those sticks were...  I needed assistance at just about every operation involving the slabs...

 

I basically used the same tools/workflow as the Guild Build with a few notable exceptions that allowed me to finish the bench in under 60hrs... Very probably, under 40hrs...

 

I rough milled the raw stock down and left it slightly oversized...  I let the stock settle for a week, and milled to final size...  I got lucky here, the stock was mostly quarter and rift, so the sticks were very stable... The workflow I was going to employ depended on that... Note: I ended-up with two 55gal drums of chips from the rough milling.

 

I knew I'd make a mistake somewhere, so I processed two extra sticks and kept them aside for just such an eventuality...

 

I've got some pretty big tools for a hobby shop (and a very long jointer bed), so I simply glued-up the slabs at 4 3/8" thick and processed the entire slab on the jointer/planer. I milled to 4 1/8" and left the slabs to settle for a week, then reprocessed the entire slab to a heavy 4" -- the slabs were very stable and moved only slightly --- again, I got a bit lucky here...

 

With the end-cap installed and all joinery in place, I ran the entire thing over the wide-belt --- thus avoiding any final flattening, sanding, etc.  I was able to process the leg vice chop in the same way...

 

I used a chop saw cut the slabs to length...  I used a freshly sharpened Forrest blade, so I didn't have any end-grain planing/sanding...  again, a big time saver.

 

I got lucky and my tail vice went in on the first pass with no binding or adjustments required -- now this was just dumb luck and not down to me...

 

The longest process was the leg vice install -- probably a couple of hours...  I made a layout mistake and had to spend over an hour working around it...  I also made a layout error in the dog-strip (I decided to go with the square dogs for purely aesthetic reasons)...  I could've lived with it, but I tend towards OCD, and had a my spare stock already milled, so ended-up re-routing the strip...

 

I must admit, if I couldn't have used what I'll term a 'Big-Tool' workflow, I probably wouldn't have built the bench.  I already had a bench, it had served me well for a decade... While inadequate for a dedicated hand-tool user (which I'm not), the existing bench would have served me fine for another decade...

[Tony Wilkins]

Bob over at Logan's cabinet shop did a Nicholson out of Borg lumber all by hand and videoed it at his blog.

[nateswoodworks]

I honestly couldn't tell you how long it took, but it took a while, more than one may think. The other thing is the details on the build take the time, what's the joinery, how are you jointing the top to the legs, and so on. I have dovetails at every corner and even though I've cut a lot of them before he sheer size of the pieces really changes the game, can't exactly cut the tails with your stock clamped vertically when it's 8' long! I did the dovetail/tenon to join the top to the base and that takes quite a bit of extra time. The size of the stock you use determines how many glue ups there will be, this can easily double this part of the build. It's all up to you how you want to build yours, that's what's great about it, but I just want you to be aware that the details and easily double or triple the build time. Here's a pic of my baby

[Tony Wilkins]

Popular woodworking has a DVD (or you can watch it on their shop class pay per view service) by the Schwarz on building one.  He uses machinery on one portion (at least he alludes to it).  I can't recall if it was for the milling or for the larger inner square mortices (I lean toward the latter).  Might be worth a watch.

[Trip]

==> He uses machinery on one portion (at least he alludes to it).

 

Chris is pretty open about power tool use.  He's stated on many occasions the he uses power tools for rough milling...

[wintersedge]

I did try a quick experiment. I glued up a 2x6 SYP to make a mock leg. I then planed the 'leg' tonight to take out the rounded edges.... I can say our forefathers did not die due to lack of exercise. My shop is 60 degrees, I was in a t-shirt and broke out in a sweat and was short of breath. Pushing a #7 around for 20-30 minutes is a great exercise.

 

If anyone has built this bench out of maple or beech using only hand tools they must have the stamina of an ox!

[G S Haydon]

I honestly couldn't tell you how long it took, but it took a while, more than one may think. The other thing is the details on the build take the time, what's the joinery, how are you jointing the top to the legs, and so on. I have dovetails at every corner and even though I've cut a lot of them before he sheer size of the pieces really changes the game, can't exactly cut the tails with your stock clamped vertically when it's 8' long! I did the dovetail/tenon to join the top to the base and that takes quite a bit of extra time. The size of the stock you use determines how many glue ups there will be, this can easily double this part of the build. It's all up to you how you want to build yours, that's what's great about it, but I just want you to be aware that the details and easily double or triple the build time. Here's a pic of my babyimage.jpg

Nice to see a quick release.

[Llama]

Popular woodworking has a DVD (or you can watch it on their shop class pay per view service) by the Schwarz on building one. He uses machinery on one portion (at least he alludes to it). I can't recall if it was for the milling or for the larger inner square mortices (I lean toward the latter). Might be worth a watch.

I have that DVD too. It's a good one!

[sdesocio]

I built a roubo inspired bench, but Ill admit that I used some power tools for milling.  I used some super clear douglas fir 4x4s from a local lumber yard - the top is 6 boards wide and 6' long. I did lapped joints for the base. I only went with a shoulder vise, and started by making a wooden one but replaced it a few months back with some metal hardware from leevalley. Id say without the leg vise it took me maybe 15-20 hours, though thats without finishing.