My workbench (yes, it's a Roubo)


SawDustB

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6 minutes ago, Chestnut said:

The amount of thread left is bad indicator. Mine have half left and bottom out on that pin. I'm not saying that's what broke this one. Pin contact or not that part shouldn't break it's what gives the clamp all of it's clamping pressure.

Oh, OK. On the Besseys, they don't come close to that spot until you're basically out of thread. I'm not sure you could actually apply any pressure that way.

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I had the same issue with a couple of hairline cracks when I used my Jet Parallel clamps on my bench. I actually cut it apart and started over only the second time I used 3/4" bar clamps with much better results. Having said that I doubt it was necessary to start over and think it would have been fine but my OCD got the best of me.

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44 minutes ago, pkinneb said:

I had the same issue with a couple of hairline cracks when I used my Jet Parallel clamps on my bench. I actually cut it apart and started over only the second time I used 3/4" bar clamps with much better results. Having said that I doubt it was necessary to start over and think it would have been fine but my OCD got the best of me.

I don't think it'll come to that with mine. At worst, I'll use some epoxy if it doesn't look great after planing the surface. Structurally, I think it's a complete non-issue here. I also don't really have any good way to cut it apart, even if I were so inclined.

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36 minutes ago, SawDustB said:

I don't think it'll come to that with mine. At worst, I'll use some epoxy if it doesn't look great after planing the surface. Structurally, I think it's a complete non-issue here. I also don't really have any good way to cut it apart, even if I were so inclined.

I agree and think you are on the right path here...it was a royal pain to do and I now think it was totally unnecessary.

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The guys at busy bee were very helpful with my broken clamp. I'm still within 30 days, so they just grabbed a new one off the wall and gave it to me without any hassle. I guess this isn't unheard of, so I'll just count myself lucky it happened now so there was no question about replacing it.

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If anything I learned from Paul Sellers is to rehearse my glue-ups, full clamping force et al, no glue applied until I'm fully satisfied.

I should have done that here. The main reason I didn't is that on the first slab, I almost didn't get the dowels out again, even without glue. In retrospect, I should have gotten new dowels or microwaved them for a few seconds to shrink them.

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3 minutes ago, SawDustB said:

I should have done that here. The main reason I didn't is that on the first slab, I almost didn't get the dowels out again, even without glue. In retrospect, I should have gotten new dowels or microwaved them for a few seconds to shrink them.

When using dowels only for alignment purposes, you can also sand them a bit. At least that is what I do.

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4 hours ago, Immortan D said:

If anything I learned from Paul Sellers is to rehearse my glue-ups, full clamping force et al, no glue applied until I'm fully satisfied.

I've gotten into that habit too on anything other than a vanilla glue up.  Have everything you need on hand,  set your clamps to size, verify alignment aids, align.  It's a good procedure that in my experience costs a bit of time but saves in frustration and mess ups.

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Not too much progress on the build, other than taking the slab out of the clamps and cleaning it off a bit. I think the glue up will end up being fine, but we'll see how it looks after planing the uneven surface down a little.

I also acquired some essential hardware for the next stages, with Lee Valley having a free shipping sale. The Bench crafted hardware seems to never be in stock locally.

crisscrossorder.jpg

Based on everyone's feedback, I got the crisscross solo (but just the mechanism, not the vise screw). I plan to pair it with a plain vise screw... Gives me most of the functionality (without the fit and finish) of the Benchcrafted solution for about half the price.

And of course, I needed the finger puppets too...

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I managed to duck out for half an hour and got the front slab through the planer. I'm pretty happy. I'll still do a cleanup pass on each face after changing the blades, but I'm still at 4 1/8 and flat on both faces. 1619b2a915ccbf385884b42fbf6d8335.jpg

You can see some of the hairline gaps from the glue up, but they're small enough I think I'll just ignore them.

e7fceef1a862b63effaace6ab4726318.jpg

I'm going to have to enlist help for the back slab. That was about the limit for what I'd put through on my own, even with setting up support.

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32 minutes ago, Brendon_t said:

Probably a good idea to glue while you still can. 

That's my thinking. The garage is insulated, and I can turn the heat on if I really need to, but it's not ideal. These steps also seem to involve quite a bit of milling, which is easier if I can open up the garage door to get more space around the planer.

 

I figure I'll have plenty of time over the winter to work on cleaning things up, cutting the joinery, and all the other tasks required to actually put this together. For now, I'll try to glue up the blanks that I'll make the parts out of. I'm also a bit intimidated by moving onto my wagon vise, because I'll need to route out the cavities for my installation (and I don't want to get it wrong). Once I draw it up in sketchup I'll post a picture to see if I've missed anything.

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After milling,  it goes fast.  even a few joints a night and within a week, that bad boy could be standing on its own four feet.

I don't know how people can take their time in a bench.   maybe it was because I was waiting for my lumber to dry out but once I started,  it was almost all consuming.  

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46 minutes ago, Brendon_t said:

After milling,  it goes fast.  even a few joints a night and within a week, that bad boy could be standing on its own four feet.

I don't know how people can take their time in a bench.   maybe it was because I was waiting for my lumber to dry out but once I started,  it was almost all consuming.  

If I could get more than a couple of hours in a week, I'm sure you're right. I would love to get this thing standing up and off the saw horses, but with the amount of shop time I've been getting it'll probably be over Christmas break. I've been enjoying the build, but I'm really looking forward to getting out of milling and into more of the details.

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Hey this is coming along great. I'm still impressed by the hand plane milling. I feel like i could never get something flat that way. I'm excited to see how the sapele turns out. This is going back a ways but did the finger puppets help the build considerably? :D <insert mental image of finger puppets trying to use hand tools>

I don't fully understand how people can take the winter off of woodworking. Winter is my most productive time. I'm all full of anxious energy because i can't go outside and mess with things like i can in the summer. I get the whole garage shop and it being cold but heating it can't be that expensive can it?

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Hey this is coming along great. I'm still impressed by the hand plane milling. I feel like i could never get something flat that way. I'm excited to see how the sapele turns out. This is going back a ways but did the finger puppets help the build considerably?

I don't fully understand how people can take the winter off of woodworking. Winter is my most productive time. I'm all full of anxious energy because i can't go outside and mess with things like i can in the summer. I get the whole garage shop and it being cold but heating it can't be that expensive can it?

Thanks! You'd probably be less impressed with the hand milling if you saw what was actually involved. I will confess that there have been a couple of less than perfect pieces with the jointing, but it all works out. The planer is still doing the bulk of the work. I could never have done this 100% by hand.

The sapele looks pretty good after I cut the pieces for the end cap. I'll post pictures after I get it glued up, I'm just deciding between a book match or slip match. The slip match will likely win out because it's a lot less obvious that it's a lamination.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to stop for the winter. This month is just busy for me with work and family, but there should be a lot more time in the new year. I certainly could heat the garage, it might just be an extra $100 a month or something (and it all goes out the door if I need to shovel or use the snow blower). I need to replace the weather stripping to reduce the air leaks. I just don't find it worth my while if I only manage an hour, so I usually spot heat with one of the little dishes. I'll heat the whole thing up if I need to for gluing or finishing.

We'll see how the finger puppets are received at Christmas time. They're not for me, really.

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I glued up the end cap tonight after flattening a bit with the hand planes. I will fully admit that i over compensated for my clamping issues on the slab glue up.

e4eed56d44d5b9c83e67922a0874c981.jpg

I got the maple board flattened and planed for the vise chop. I need to trim everything up and then glue it to the sapele piece.

25532f36f7c92bfd8cada4ada6ac2920.jpg

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Minor progress today. I started jointing some pieces for the legs, and I glued up the leg vise chop. The pieces were edge jointed and trimmed to rough size first.

da1fd65a1983aa40977af72d531f4970.jpg

And then I tried to make sure it was well clamped. The maple piece actually warped a little when I covered the whole face in glue, but it clamped flat fine.3ae4cde4382fd1b16da12d142940495d.jpg

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