Raked leg Roubo workbench redux

Splayed leg Roubo nears the finish line

Well it’s really been a “slog”.  But, finally, it looks like I may finish the little Underhill style workbench before much more time passes.  The bench has a diminutive look to it.  But, in fact, it’s nearly seven feet long.  It’s thirty six inches high, which tends to make it look a little shorter than it really is.  Right at the moment the leg vise is just hanging by a thread, so to speak.

The end vise is massive.  This design could certainly be used as a front vise, as well.  However, I decided to use a leg vise in front and keep the location of the screw low.  This will allow me to join wide boards without having to stand on tiptoe.

There are still a lot of details to finish.  Then, of course there is “the finish” which will be BLO, Turpentine and Urethane.  It’ll be a while yet, but I’m getting there.

A “take-off” on Brother Underhill’s “Little French Bench”

Alright.  So I haven’t written anything for more than a month.  And, I haven’t done a thing on the Sidewinder lathe project.  I haven’t been fishing, although the Walleye run was great in the Maumee river this spring.  Friends of mine were literally leaving coolers full of fish on my porch.  So, you might ask, what have I been doing.  Afterall “idle hands are the devil’s workshop”.  Well, once again, I’ve allowed myself to be diverted.  But it’s all good.  Honest!

I’ve always had a hankering to build the small, portable workbench that Roy Underhill features in his book, “Working with Edge and Wedge”.  Roy apparently saw a similar bench while on a trip to France, fell in love with it, came home and built his own version.  The fact that the rear legs are raked while the front legs remain plumb make the joinery for this seemingly simple little knock-down bench pretty tricky, tricky indeed.  In fact Brother Roy increased his degree of difficulty by incorporating rising dovetail joints in his model.  I’ll be explaining why I elected to use a modified dovetailed tenon.

But right at the moment, here are a couple of pictures.  I’ve completed the top and the frame.  They’re just dry-fitted at the moment.  I’ll be posting fairly frequently as I work towards the finish of the project.  It’ll take a little while.  But, I’m sure it will be well worth the effort.

dry-fitted frame – overlook the parallax problem

front and rear tenons - note the front is not a "rising dovetail"

 

 

 

top in place - one single piece of hand-planed ash