My split Roubo workbench

[Sergio Escudero]

I’ve been working on my workbench for about eight months now. For many, it probably sounds crazy to choose something like this as my very first project with hand tools. Up until then, I had practically no real experience with them—planes were something I had only ever used occasionally for very basic tasks. I didn’t know how to square a face, remove twist, or reduce thickness. In truth, I had no choice: my planer and thicknesser were so unbelievably bad that they never gave me flat or true faces. In fact, they almost guaranteed a belly in the middle, twist across the board, and snipe at both ends. So if I didn’t want to end up with a workbench I would regret for the rest of my life, I had to do it this way—arming myself with tons of patience and pushing myself harder than ever before.

In the beginning my tool kit was ridiculously basic: a Stanley No. 4 with plastic handles and an unbranded No. 5 (it didn’t even have a number on it, but by eye it was a No. 5). From there, I had to learn not only how to use them, but also how to restore and tune old planes just to have any chance of making progress. As soon as I could, I bought a Juuma No. 7 to have a long jointer (though later I managed to get a Stanley No. 8, type 15, which I used to flatten the boards for the benchtop).

The bench itself is a split-top Roubo. I started by gluing up the legs (white oak, 125x125mm, each made from three laminations), squaring them up, then dimensioning the stretchers (red oak, 90x90mm). After that came the real challenge: the top. Seven massive beech planks (thicknessed from 50mm to 44mm), planed and reduced almost entirely by hand, to form the first half of the benchtop (2m long, 300mm wide each half, 100mm thick). Just preparing that first half took me about a month.

Progress has been painfully slow—I’m already around 150 hours in and I’m not even halfway done. But the truth is that this bench has become my crash course in both furniture building and hand tool use. It’s probably the hardest way to learn, but I can’t imagine a better one for truly understanding what hand tools are capable of.

[Jonathan McCully]

Looking great! I recently finished my roubo bench, a project that I had been wanting to complete for quite awhile, and while I did mine with power and hand tools, it was definitely a labor of love as it seems yours is turning out to be. I’m really excited to see what it looks like when you are finished, and you will definitely be a better woodworker for having completed it.

[Von]

Congratulations on diving in and looks like you are doing well. I hope you keep sharing your progress. I'm currently drying some lumber to build a similar bench (with both power and hand tools) next year and welcome learning from your experience.

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

All the respect in the world to you for taking that on by hand. You're getting absolutely invaluable experience and education, and it looks like you're doing a great job! 

Please continue to post your progress!!

[Botch]

Congrats for diving in on a daunting project like that!  I agree with @Von, a weekly update would be great!  

[wtnhighlander]

Progress looks great! I have no doubt, you will achieve a particular sense of satisfaction when that bench is complete.

[Sergio Escudero]

On 8/29/2025 at 2:21 AM, Botch said:

Congrats for diving in on a daunting project like that!  I agree with @Von, a weekly update would be great!  

Should I do it in this same post or in a new one? I don't know how this forum handles updates and new comments, so I don't know if it will end up buried by new topics. I'll do it anyway, maybe not every week because I might not have anything substantial to show, but when I do. Now I'm trying to figure out how to fit the nut from the wagon vise screw into the cross piece at the end of the top.

[Sergio Escudero]

On 8/29/2025 at 1:35 AM, Ron Swanson Jr. said:

All the respect in the world to you for taking that on by hand. You're getting absolutely invaluable experience and education, and it looks like you're doing a great job! 

Please continue to post your progress!!

Thank you for your words. I am definitely learning a lot. At first, I approached it with the mindset of “I have no choice but to do it this way,” but now I am more like “I prefer to do it this way.”

[Von]

On 8/29/2025 at 8:01 AM, Sergio Escudero said:

Should I do it in this same post or in a new one? I don't know how this forum handles updates and new comments, so I don't know if it will end up buried by new topics. I'll do it anyway, maybe not every week because I might not have anything substantial to show, but when I do. Now I'm trying to figure out how to fit the nut from the wagon vise screw into the cross piece at the end of the top.

I would say do it however you are most comfortable. That said, I think it's fairly common for us to start a topic, as you have done here, and then post updates to it as comments as you wish. It saves you from having to come up with new titles and keeps the thread together (which can be handy when you try to recall how you did something). There are lots of examples of this and I'll point to my own ongoing lumber drying/bench build as one example that I think is fairly typical, if already on the long side.

[Mark J]

@Sergio Escudero, welcome to the forum!  Out of curiosity, what part of the world are you in?

Great project!  I'm looking forward to following along.

[Sergio Escudero]

On 8/29/2025 at 3:11 PM, Mark J said:

what part of the world are you in?

I'm from north Spain, Europe.

[Sergio Escudero]

On 8/29/2025 at 2:50 PM, Von said:

I would say do it however you are most comfortable. That said, I think it's fairly common for us to start a topic, as you have done here, and then post updates to it as comments as you wish. It saves you from having to come up with new titles and keeps the thread together (which can be handy when you try to recall how you did something). There are lots of examples of this and I'll point to my own ongoing lumber drying/bench build as one example that I think is fairly typical, if already on the long side.

Oh, I see, I'll update here then. I saw your post, and I'm jealous of how common it is to be able to cut down trees on your property in the US. In Spain, that never happens; our housing and urban planning model is completely different. I would love to be able to cut down trees myself and cut them the way I want.

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

On 8/29/2025 at 7:14 AM, Sergio Escudero said:

 but now I am more like “I prefer to do it this way.”

I completely understand that feeling! 

[Von]

Here are a few other ongoing build logs that I'm enjoying on the site so you can really see the richness of this community and different approaches people take (with apologies to those I'm missing):

• Sewing Cabinet
• Helical Drawer Cases
• Shaker Bedside Table

BTW, the way I usually start my day in the forum is to look at the New Content page which will show me all the new posts and comments since my last visit.

[Von]

On 8/29/2025 at 9:36 AM, Sergio Escudero said:

I'm jealous of how common it is to be able to cut down trees on your property in the US. In Spain, that never happens; our housing and urban planning model is completely different. I would love to be able to cut down trees myself and cut them the way I want.

It varies depending on where you are. My friend lives in a rural area outside of the city and he has no real restrictions. If he were to start clear cutting that would raise concerns, but some cutting down of trees is accepted as part of normal maintenance. Where I'm at, in a medium-sized town, it's a sizable undertaking to safely take down a tree and I may need to get permission depending on where exactly it is. I probably will never do it unless a tree dies or otherwise becomes a threat.

[Beechwood Chip]

On 8/29/2025 at 9:36 AM, Sergio Escudero said:

I'm jealous of how common it is to be able to cut down trees on your property in the US.

The United States is like the European Union, and each state is like a European country in size, population, etc.  And within states, there's a big difference between the cities and the rural areas.  I think most Americans don't think it's common to cut down trees on one's property.

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

On 8/29/2025 at 8:36 AM, Sergio Escudero said:

I would love to be able to cut down trees myself and cut them the way I want.

For a lot of us hobbiests the costs of taking down a tree are substantial; and then someone with the equipment to move it, mill it, and dry it - you could exceed $10k on something like that. 

I discovered a saw mill about an hour's drive from here and am going to go check it out on Tuesday. I introduced myself via email and they're very welcoming for small fry buyers like me. 

[Von]

On 8/30/2025 at 7:51 AM, Ron Swanson Jr. said:

For a lot of us hobbiests the costs of taking down a tree are substantial

It became clear a while ago I'm not going to save money versus even buying the wood and having it shipped to me. Too many one-off costs and I don't get economies of scale from doing it repeatedly. And that's assuming I don't botch the drying and end up with some of the world's most expensive firewood.

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

On 8/30/2025 at 8:10 AM, Von said:

 And that's assuming I don't botch the drying and end up with some of the world's most expensive firewood.

@Von this made me laugh, man. 

Based on the pics you've shared, I'd say you're doing a fine job so far. As long as the boards don't end up looking like a strand of DNA and it's reasonably dry, i think you'll be golden. 

[Von]

On 8/29/2025 at 10:03 AM, Von said:

Where I'm at, in a medium-sized town, it's a sizable undertaking to safely take down a tree and I may need to get permission depending on where exactly it is. I probably will never do it unless a tree dies or otherwise becomes a threat.

Coincidentally, a neighbor is having a big oak taken down today. As the photo below shows, it's between two houses and they are cutting it into ~6-8' sections and lowering it to the ground. They've been at it all morning (4+ hours) and I suspect it will take them all day.

 

[Sergio Escudero]

This thing has cost me the whole day, but the job is done. I managed to embed the nut. I made a couple of holes by hand with Forstner bits using a hand drill, first 40 mm for the narrow part of the nut, then 28 mm for the screw; then I shaped the taper with a gouge and file. I cut down the flat part with a chisel and hammer and then refined it with the router plane (Paul Sellers kit). The screw has some play, but within that small movement there is a point where it is perfectly aligned on both axes. I have marked the layout for the mortise that joins it to the rest of the top.

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

Looks like nice clean work. Good job. 

[Sergio Escudero]

The mortise and tenon are done. The mortise was made by pre-drilling to remove part of the material, and then I simply cleaned out the waste with a chisel and squared the walls.

The tenon was a bit more complicated. First, I sawed it by hand and removed the excess with a chisel. Then I carefully defined the shoulders using a chisel and a backing block, but it wasn’t perfect, so I refined them with a miter saw cut. I removed the excess material from the tenon and flattened the cheeks with a Record 778 without the fence. It’s really useful. Maybe not the most ideal plane, but it’s the one I had, and shoulder planes are absurdly expensive. Yes, they’re made for shoulders, but I managed to avoid needing one. I should mention that I did try with the 778 unsuccessfully at first.

The result was perfect. The fit is so incredibly tight and clean that I have to drive it home with a rubber mallet. This is the first time I’ve done this, and I’m happy.

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

Nice work, Sergio. There's nothing (well, almost nothing) that feels better than seating a well cut joint like that!

[wtnhighlander]

Agreed, that is well executed! A sign of craftsmanship is the ability to adapt the tool you have to the task at hand, and still achieve the desired result.