Pressure Pushing Down On Me...

By matthew

Apr 22, 2012

In case you didn't catch my witty title, this round is going to be all about pressure...or in this case all about the glue up on the workbench slabs. I have to admit that this task was fairly stressful on top of it all; which makes the title even more relevant...

After sorting through the pile of boards and reassessing them for grain direction, bow/cup/crown etc one last time I had my slabs roughed and ready for some glue.

Sizing & Sorting

Due to the number and sizing of clamps in my collection I knew that I was going to have to tackle this process in two lumps over different days. In hindsight I wish I had thought my processes through a tad more rather than jumping in all gonzo, but hey...that's me and that's my woodworking style. Due to the smaller number of pieces I opted to run with gluing up the front slab first. In the days leading up to this point I had very good intentions of stopping and picking up a small foam paint roller to aid in my application of glue, but alas my brains must have been clouded with too many malted hops because I totally forgot. No worries, it'll work out with just my squeeze bottle of glue and my glue roller....right? Weeeeell.....mostly as you'll see in a few moments.

In an effort to assist with aligning a stack of 5 heavy slippery boards I opted to install a few #20 biscuits in each piece. In retrospect I wish I had placed one about every foot or so rather than the every 18-20" than I did. I also placed these from the bottom of the slab as deeply as my plate joiner would allow (about 1.5"). Can I say that I was and still am fairly jealous of those guys out there that have a Festool Domino at their disposal because it would have made this process that much sweeter and my alignment that much better. But even with my #20 biscuits the alignment and process wasn't too bad and I'm actually pretty happy with the overall end result.

Ready and Waiting for Glue

In my experience biscuits work better if they're glued in place so I made sure that each pocket received a squeeze of glue directly before inserting the biscuit and capping it all off with the next board. I don't have any scientific evidence of it but to me the extra exposure to glue directly in the pocket causes the compressed beech to expand that much quicker and makes the alignment of the pieces that much better. I could be totally off base here...and if I am...oh well.

So after what felt like an eternity and a TON of glue it came time to apply some pressure....as in the 8 or so parallel clamps at my disposal and a few F clamps from my rack. The problem I ran into is that as I was rolling the glue my little glue roller just took too much time. Overall the process took about 18 minutes and I thought I was rushing through. For those of you not in the know that is damn near if not over the limit for the open time on basic titebond.Thankfully I had cooler temperatures on my side which pushed the open time back a bit and just may have saved my butt.

Front Slab

Front Slab Glue up

I also think I had a few different factors in play during this time. 1: the amount of time it took to do the glue up, 2: the amount of glue and 3: not enough clamping pressure. Add all of these factors together and what have you got? A mess...well not too bad, but it could have been really bad. Thankfully the extra length I added into my pieces saved my butt and I mean SAVED my butt. After I pulled the clamps I found a few pieces that hadn't laminated nice and tight, resulting in a hairline gap. But these gaps were only at the very end of one end and due to my extra length it gave me just enough to chop this piece out and move on.

After realizing my potential faults during the front slab I made sure I wasn't going to have a repeat on the rear slab. I picked up a 4" foam paint roller to do my spreading and man am I glad I did. The amount of time it took to glue up the rear was only 12 minutes and that's with an extra 2 boards in the mix. This time around I wasn't taking any chances on clamping pressure and pulled out all the stops. With the extra few boards in the mix I didn't want to give the slab any opportunity to move.

Rear Slab Cooking away

At the end of the day I was fairly happy with the end results. Each slab was fairly flat with minimal slippage on each piece. Each slab did have a board or two that had bowed a tad or slipped a bit during the glue up but a few passes with my #7 jointer and things were ready to run through the planer again.

Squaring after glue up

Did I mention before that the slabs were big? Cause they're EFFING HUGE now...If it wasn't for the wife giving me some support (emotional and physical) I don't think I would have gotten each slab through the planer...at least not without blowing a gasket lifting each one for a few passes through it. After it was all said and done my final slab thickness at this point is 4-5/8".

Up next is the front slab tenon, screw cavity and end cap...if I'm lucky

Total Build Time:

- 1.5 hours (lumber selection, transport & stacking)

-4 hours (Top Slab milling)

- 1.5 hours (slab prep and glue up*)

-0.5 hours (preliminary flattening of both slabs)

-0.5 hours (Final rough slab milling)

-8 hours total

*I haven't included my clamp time in these figures if you want to add those figures in, each slab sat for 24 hours taking the entire process to 56 hours with down time.

Tags: Wood, Woodworking, Maple, Roubo, Split Top Roubo, Split Top, Work Bench, Bench, Bench Crafted, wagon vise, glide vise, leg vise, vise
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Ooofda! (or) Hernia's For All!

By matthew

Apr 16, 2012

Did I mention in my last post that the pieces we're dealing with here are LAAARGE? Well in case you missed it, I'm re-descripting my assessment...They're FREAKING HUUUUGE! But that's for later.

Now that the lumber is nicely stacked in the shop (sorry no pic...not sure why I didn't take one, must have been the sheer joy of that much lumber in my shop) it's time to tear into it. I, like Marc, assessed that starting with the bench tops really made the most sense. I mean really people...we're talking about a serious piece of equipment and it really only makes sense that you would at least get the pieces to a fairly finished stage before starting in on the supporting acts. Seriously...do you make all the side dishes for Thanksgiving first? Hell no! You unwrap that giant ass turkey and slap it into the oven before working on the potatoes, rolls etc. So to me it me only made sense to get the tops built and sized so that as it came time to build the base I could match my sizing and process any changes that I'm mulling over for it after I know the key elements are together and more importantly what their true dimensions are going to be.

I dug through the stack of maple and categorized my pieces; front slab, back slab and chop. From there I then refined the front slab pile down to outer face, inner face and dog strip. The front pile received the best pieces or if you prefer those with the least amount of bow/cup, twist and clear strait grain, with the absolute best of the best going to those key visible surfaces and more importantly the dog hole strip. The rear slab pile ended up with the rejects...poor guy...but the fact of the matter is that it's only going to receive a clean up of it's overall length before it's labeled as done.

With the sorting done it was time to fire up my new toy...the Grizzly G0634XP...ohhhhh yeah!

After my last post I want to take a minute to clarify the purchase of this piece of machinery. I did not purchase it solely for this build. I did however purchase it because of this build. It's a piece that I have been contemplating for several years and honestly saw myself purchasing 2 separate pieces in a 10-12" jointer and a stand alone 16" planer. But with the surge in the industry with safe and reliable combo pieces such as this, it just made more sense to run in this direction vs. two separate pieces. The other key is that this honestly has been a purchase in the making for quite some time. I just needed that last push to make it a reality and this build was it. So don't jump to conclusions that in order to take on a build of this size that you need a huge piece of machinery, because the simple fact is that you don't...now back to the action...

I have to admit that being able to surface stock of this size down to an S2S grade for the first time in a number of years was soooooo nice. Not having to pay the lumber yard or rent shop time or weasel my way into a friends shop was worth every single penny. Rather than having to conform to someone else's timeline I was now at my own discretion and could work at my pace and on my own terms.

S2S Care of my New Planer/Jointer Combo

With the stock surfaced on two sides it was now time to rip it to rough width and length. Where I was using a new machine I opted to cut my lengths long...as in 106" long. The reason I did this was to account for snipe out of the new planer...but without running a piece or two through there was no way to really gauge what I would really be looking at. Is this machine going to give me 1" or 8" of snipe? Who knew? So to play it safe I went long. I also had the length out of the 10' pieces and didn't really see any reason to go shorter than that. Once I had them to length they were then ripped to 5" in width. I know the plans call for 4" but again where most of my boards were in the 5-7" range anything thinner seemed pointless. After all, this is hopefully going to be an heirloom piece and I sincerely hope that it's is passed from one generation to the next with many, many, many re-flattening of the top...so more thickness in my mind would equal a greater longevity.

Length Cut off

Width Cut off

With the rough cuts finished up everything was skip planed to a consistent thickness and height. Once everything was said and done I was looking at pieces in the 1-3/4" wide range by about 4-13/16" thick. What this translated into was the rear slab being 3/4" wider than in the plans and the front slab being 1/2" wider. I could have taken these down to the plan sizing, but honestly, at $4.27/foot I couldn't bring myself to do it. That 1-1/4" is a minor change in my mind and honestly I really would like the overall width of the bench to be in the 26-28" range anyway. It may not sound like a lot, but those 2-3" in width translate into quite a bit of extra work space with minimal impact.

Now that the pieces are to a rough dimensions it's time to invest in some glue...but that's for another day.

Total Build Time:

- 1.5 hours (lumber selection, transport & stacking)

-4 hours (Top Slab milling)

-5.5 hours total

Holy LUMBER BatMan!

By matthew

Apr 15, 2012

Hooray!!! We're building a new workbench...so now what?

The most logical step (at least in my head) was to place my order for the vise hardware. The kits are from they guys over at Bench Crafted; boutique operation if you will (seems boutique is everywhere...so why not in metal & woodworking?) producing some of the finest vise hardware on the market. When I first placed my order the back log was enough that I potentially could have been out 8-10 weeks, but the woodworking gods were smiling on me as it would seem and only took 4 for delivery. I admit that delivery was far quicker than I had expected, so the box of goodies sat under the bar in our kitchen...for 8 weeks...but that's besides the point right?

Not only did I purchase the goods for the wagon and leg vises I also splurged on the hardware to produce a kick ass Moxon vise at the tail end of the build. I'm looking at it as a reward for all the hard work and effort that is going to be put in building the bench...True the bench would be reward enough for many, but I'm motivated by reward and felt the reward on top of the reward was totally necessary...I feel like I've said reward too much...reward...

After perusing the plans I quickly came to the realization that I was going to really need another piece of machinery in the shop. Something I have been dreaming of for quite awhile. Actually that's not toooootally true. The thing is that the bench design deals with several LARGE pieces...and by LARGE I mean LAAAARGE. We're talking at least 4 inches thick and nearly a foot wide by nearly 8 feet long. Yeah...I remember those things from my carpentry days...they're called beams and are used to hold up floors and roofs. I do have an acquaintance here in town that owns and operates a custom door shop that has the equipment to handle these pieces, so I felt comfortable that I could take on the challenge. But as time wore on I began to believe that placing an order for my long dreamed of piece of machinery actually made more sense. I'm the first to admit that my desire to have a 12" jointer and 12-16" planer in my shop is enough to keep me up at night waiting for the delivery truck just like I did in my younger years for the fat man in red to slide down my chimney for a strange reverse breaking and entering...but so was my desire for a suitable workspace that I was also willing to drive the 30 some odd miles to the door shop to mill my pieces. But alas common sense prevailed and the wife agreed that maybe it was time to look at picking up my long desired machinery...yes I think I may have fallen out of my chair when she agreed...The convincing piece of evidence, for me at least, was watching Marc maneuver and assemble his tops via the guild website. Seeing that video truly put the pieces into perspective and the thought of having to lug them back and forth and back and forth to the door shop and my shop became more and more daunting. ..so buying that piece of machinery really began to make the most sense.

From that decision a few more weeks went into the planning process as the wife (I would say that I helped...but in all honesty the wife made it happen and for that I love her that much more) quietly squirreled away enough cash to purchase the piece I had decided upon. Having a separate 12" jointer and a 16" planer would absolutely rock. But at this point in my career I don't have the space, nor the funds to support such a purchase. I do however have the space and the funds for a 12" jointer/planer combo. The piece of machinery I decided on was a Grizzly G0634XP. The key deciding factor was the length of the input and output beds, but more importantly the segmented cutter head.

Before I knew it the piece was in a truck and at my doorstep...yet another piece to the workbench puzzle down.

Like a Tiger...the Jointer/Planer Combo prowls its cage

It was such a beautiful day...I nearly cried...

Ready to Make Some Dust

With those pieces in place it was time to take the final plunge and buy some lumber, but what species? I had given this a lot of thought over the past several weeks. I knew I wanted to keep it domestic and had really thought about making it special. I kept returning to maple and black walnut...2 species that would give me the durability and the look I was going for. But as the weeks went buy the lumber costs in my area nearly doubled, (maple went from $2.50/foot to $4.27/foot). Also the more time that went by the more I began to question the walnut. My initial plan was to make the dog hole strip, leg vise chop and end cap out of walnut, but I couldn't pull the trigger. I don't know if it was the number of other guys out there that were doing much the same, the cost of walnut or the overall look and durability of those pieces, but I couldn't do it. I got to the lumber yard and had the maple for the top pulled and loaded when I asked about Red Alder...hmmmm....the pricing was excellent at just over $1.00/foot and Alder is another one of those woods that I absolutely love using. I asked the fork lift driver to pull out their bundle of rustic 8/4 stock for me to take a peek at. Amazingly the pieces were mostly strait grain with minimal knots...however the knots that were present were fairly large and weak...but still this change in plans was going to work. So with that my bench took a 180 and I'm extremely happy that it did.

250' of 8/4 stock Oh MY!

After it was all said and done I ended up just over 100' of Hard Maple (Acer saccharum) and just over 150' of Red Alder (Alnus rubra). I did purchase heavy on the Alder simply because of the rustic grading. I fully suspect that I'm going to have to pick and choose my way through the pile to pull together enough solid pieces for the base. But I'm not too concerned...like I said Alder is one of my favorite species and having a few slabs of it hanging around the shop isn't the end of the world to me. The other issue at hand is simply that my supplier didn't have maple in anything over 10 inches or under 5 inches...damn near every piece in their bundle was 5-7". The two 10" pieces they did have most definitely made their way into the truck though. The other issue is that all of their stock is either 10' or 12' in length; ultimately ending up in having to purchase high on the total footage.

I still can't believe that it's all coming together. If you would have asked me at this time last year if I would be building a bench of this nature in the next year I would have laughed. Funny how life turns out when you're not paying attention...

Up next is actual woodworking...I know...exciting right...

As an added bonus to you arm chair wood workers I plan on documenting the total time I've spent on building the bench, so with that, here it is:

Total time spent on the build at this point: 1.5 hours (lumber selection, transport & stacking)

Let's Get Ready to Rrrrrrrrrrroubo!!!

By matthew

Apr 08, 2012

For as long as I can remember I've had a simple dream. A dream for my workshop. A dream of a work surface so wide and vast that I could butcher a rabid moose upon it. A work surface that stretched to the horizon; sunrise, sunset! A simple dream of a true woodwork bench. Over the years I would come to lust after the benches of the masters. My dreams always had me standing beside a bench the size of a Humvee...a true European cabinet makers bench; big and beefy with huge vises capable of clamping the very movement of the Earth if the need ever arose. A bench who's mass is so vast that it would in fact throw the laws of gravity into disarray as the Earth would be attracted to its gravitational pull. A bench that would be mixed with the various species of wood; a veritable encyclopedia of wood on display for all humanity.

It was a nice dream...

But as with every dream it fell victim to the rays of dawns approach. What would I really do with a bench that was that big? Seriously...what? This question always rang in my head as I lazily allowed myself to slip into this dream state.

It was ultimately that question that kept me from taking the plunge and building my dream. Ok, not really but it was always there, lingering in the back of my mind. I also had hesitations with the types of vices that were generally used. The one problem I always had with traditional tail and face vises was the inherent clamping limitations. The traditional tail vise of many cabinet makers benches was about the only one that really made any sense to me, but the sheer size of it always made me hesitate. That giant L shaped slab of wood working its way back and forth and back and forth and back and forth always seemed so inefficient to me. But then again I didn't really see any other viable options so that's just the way it would have to be. So on and on went my mind, the ultimate tug of war with myself; build it...don't build it...build it...yes...no...yes...no!

So fast forward to the middle of 2011. That's when I stumbled upon this guy that's my age and producing woodworking videos for his website and crafts guild...Marc Spagnuolo His website was astounding to me. Nothing like the others that were out there. There was none of the ego wars that so often accompany online forums and there was definitely no better than everyone vibe about this guy. So I started digging around over the next few months...that's right...I was a lurker...I lurked the shit outta that site...but never really took the jump to do anything other than lurk. I had been burned so many times before on the other woodworking sites that I just didn't have it in me to fight that fight anymore. I was content doing my thing and everyone else could stick it! But then there was one item that really stuck with me; an announcement that the guild portion of the site was going to be tackling a work bench...HA I thought, no way it'll compare to the Humvee of benches I had been designing in my head for all those years. But as the weeks wore on, I started to find myself thinking more and more about the picture of the proposed bench. Where's it's mass...no traditional tail vise? No face vise? WTF...and this guy calls himself a wood worker? That thing is going to blow over in a stiff breeze...or will it? But, as it so often does, life got in the way and woodworking fell victim to paying the bills and ultimately rebuilding my precious shop after the great pipe burst of 2011.

But that bench was always pounding away in my brain...begging for me to give it attention. Finally after a frustrating day of cutting dovetails on my wobbly table and hand screw/vise setup, I dug up thewoodwhisperer.com again. It was time for a show down. It was going to be the blow out of the century, my Humvee bench vs. this thing called the Split Top Roubo...pssssha like it even remotely has a chance...after all I've had this psychosis...er...I mean dream for years. There's no way a frenchypoo bench was going to blow my Humvee of a bench off the beach. But then again, after digging through the documents and videos that Marc had pulled together concerning the bench I had the realization that the constant question of why build this behemoth was no longer there. This bench made absolute sense to me. The simple sliding wagon tail vise was pure genius and the the leg vise had so much potential that I was kicking myself for never really giving it more than a few cursory glances over the years. A split top? BRILLIANT...And the base? big and sturdy yet not so huge that Earth wouldn't be able to continue turning on its axis. For the first time in years I was truly excited about building a true workbench.

So after a few more days of ho humming about joining the guild and a few more about the cost of the hardware and lumber I decided that it was time and took the plunge. I dove into that pool without looking to see if I was in the shallow end or not and damn that murky bottom, the time had come to get off my lazy woodworking ass and build the tool I have been lacking for all those years.

So sit back and follow along for what I am certain is about to be a fairly interesting roller coaster ride...and if I'm lucky there just might be a usable workbench at the end of it all.

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