WTO Rite of Passage: Roubo Build Thread


bgreenb

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Is that Downes & Reader in Stoughton? 

Lumber transportation looks fine to me - of course I did that in my old 4 runner, slammed on the brakes and cracked the windshield.  This is a safe place where we can talk about stuff like that, right?  What? I thought we were in the trust tree in the nest, were we not?

 

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Is that Downes & Reader in Stoughton? 

Lumber transportation looks fine to me - of course I did that in my old 4 runner, slammed on the brakes and cracked the windshield.  This is a safe place where we can talk about stuff like that, right?  What? I thought we were in the trust tree in the nest, were we not?

 

LOL.  "I'm definitely feeling a little FREAKED OUT..."

Yes, that's D&R in Stoughton.  Pretty much the only hardwood dealer within reasonable driving distance of me, but fortunately they're great there.  Great selection and they always treat me well even though I'm a hobbyist (it probably helps that I conduct myself like a reasonable person).  I've also been to the one in Milford, CT, and I'd recommend that one as well.

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This is great Brian. I look forward to following this. You do great work and your journals are awesome as well. The forum doesn't have alot of journals going on right now so this comes at the perfect time!

Thanks Shane!  I agree - not enough journals right now.  Definitely my favorite part of the forum.  Love seeing other people's projects come together.

my band saw just couldn't handle it,

out of curiosity, what couldn't it handle? Not enough power? Not enough fence?

I'd say a combination of not enough power and not enough tuning.  It's a (very) old Delta Rockwell 14" with a 3/4 HP motor.  Honestly the motor is plenty with a slow feed rate, but the blade tensioning mechanism broke during my last project.  I fixed it with some spit and glue, and I just can't get enough tension on the blade to keep it from wandering too much.  I have the part, but I haven't had a chance to fix it.  So the overarching problem is laziness, as usual.

Planning on getting a Laguna SUV or a PM1500 in the next few months, at which point I will covert the Delta to just curve cutting and small parts and whatnot.  

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Lots of progress last night.  I wasn't quitting til the milling was done.  A miserable night in the shop, but I'm happy with the results.

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Yes, my planer is sitting on top of my router table.  Due to the length of the boards, I couldn't keep my planer in its usual spot, or I would've had to open the garage door to feed the stock through.  And since the 735 sounds like a jet engine, no way I could keep the garage door open at 9:30 at night.

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Front slab a TINY bit under width.  Guess I overshot a bit on thicknessing.  Oh well.

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We've got slabs!

Some notes:

- As Marc suggested, I've put all the more "wonky" boards in the back slab.  You can see a gap between the two leftmost boards.  I haven't arranged the boards at all yet, they are just randomly placed to get a measurement.  That board will go in the center and clamping pressure will take care of it no problem.

- The slabs are about 4 1/8" thick.  Simply couldn't get any more out of them after straightening all the boards.  So I don't have a ton of room to play with after the glue up.  Thank god for dominoes.

- I haven't arranged the boards in their final orientation yet, but I'm kind of disappointed that there's so much random color variation.  Oh well, it's a workbench...

Still a bunch of work to do before glue up.  Need to fill a few knots and cracks with epoxy, figure out the final orientations, mark out for dominoes, and cut the domino mortises.  But my goal of a Saturday glue up seems well within reach.

Oh, and I filled two more DC bags.  Ugh.  Anything worse than swapping out a dust collection bag when you're in the middle of an operation?  I've sung the praises of the HF DC before (for the price), and I stand by it, but man does it SUCK to change that bag.

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Back on topic - looking great so far Brian. Surprised you are using saw horses though as you appear to have a couple of benches in the background.

Thanks!  The reason for the saw horses is mainly that they are standing roughly where the bench is going to live, so I figured it would minimize having to move those heavy slabs around as much as possible.  The table to the left is my TS outfeed table, and I know that as soon as I put the slabs on it, I'll realize I need to use the TS and have to move them again.  The bench in the background is where I store all my crap :)  It's also against two walls so it's kind of hard to work on such a big piece if it were on that bench since I can only access one side.  Figured the sawhorses were a cheap solution.  It also allowed me to keep all of the wood near the milling equipment (as I'm taking that photo I'm standing next to the jointer and planer) rather than having to keep carrying them back and forth....and I'm REALLY lazy...

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If I had sawhorses that nice, id be using them too. Saweeeeeet!

HA.  They are Tom's recommendation.  Picked up the brackets at home depot for 5 bucks, a few 2x4's and I was in business.  Edge jointed the platform 2x4's so that I'd have a flat surface to put the bench on.  Up and running in 15 minutes!  

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The worst part of the build was dealing with all the bag changes. I went through 7 bag changes. If you come in under width, make sure you adjust from there out, and reference off the same side for the end cap templates. In the end, you'll just have a wider gap for your gap stop. If I remember correctly, the front slab pre doghole strip was 7 13/16" Took a lot of little bits of milling to get that just right. 

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Exciting day yesterday!  My bench hardware arrived:

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A few observations about this stuff:

- Man that box was heavy.  It's not a large box, so I didn't really expect it when I picked it up.

- You can tell just looking and feeling this stuff that it's incredibly high quality.  

- The plans they give you are very cool.  I feel like I'm building a house from blueprints.

- Two annoying things.  First, they didn't include the vise instructions.  This might have just been an oversight, but it's annoying to have to print them from the website.  I would've been extra annoyed if this were the weekend, since I don't have a printer at home.

- Second is that the plans differ slightly from the ones on the guild site.  I realize that it's been a few years, so they might have changed in the interim, and obviously I don't expect Marc to keep updating his plans to keep pace with the benchcrafted ones.  I don't think any of the differences actually matter, but for example the slabs in the BC plans are each 1/8" wider than in the guild plans.  I've already sized my slabs, so I'll have to do some thinking along the way to make sure I don't screw anything up.

But all in all I'm psyched about the hardware.

Didn't get a ton of shop time in last night, but was able to get the slabs into their final orientation and mark out for dominos.  I also set up the domino and got it ready to go.  Tonight I'm hoping to cut all 70 mortises, do the 3-4 epoxy fills that I still need to do, and be ready for glue up tomorrow.  If someone can give me a call later to remind me to pick up a gallon of titebond on my way home from work, I'd appreciate it.

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