One of my entries in "The World's Slowest Woodworker" contest is a trio of heavy Roubo style workbenches for the Kansas City Woodworkers' Guild shop. And when I say "trio" I really mean "quartet" because I'm building one for at home too. Yesterday (Saturday) and today I finally had the time to get in and work on fitting the stretchers to the legs and then a dry fit of the legs into the top. I have two more tops like this done with one set of legs nearly ready and the third I'll need to laminate additional material to complete them.

The tops are around 4" thick and made of reclaimed Douglas Fir that came from some HUGE beams. These were donated to us by a company called Beaver Timber. The legs and stretchers on this bench are laminated from 2x8s. I've got some 8/4 ash to make a leg vice chop and I'll be recycling an old face vice as the end vice (can't remember the maker but it is a Record 52 clone). My estimate for the finished weight on this sucker is in the 200 lb range. Should be just over 6 feet long and about 22" deep with a height of 32". The other two will have the same basic footprint but I'll make them a bit shorter. We are considering making one of them "left handed".

This is the dry fit of the top, legs and stretchers. Next weekend I hope to have some time to start the work on the leg vice and maybe get the end vice mounted.

Slow but good! Bench progress is looking good RW.. Keep us posted, especially when you get some IN USE pics.

Bruce

Nice job! That's one "manly" looking bench top. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Regards,
George

Took some time off work in hopes of having this one done in time for the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event at the KCWG shop this weekend. Almost made it.

Got the dog holes drilled, end vice installed, leg vice chop made, parallel guide made and mortises chopped and several other smaller tasks. Now the beast is ready to glue up. I don't recommend trying to glue one of these up yourself. But I do recommend using something that sets slow. I opted for liquid hide glue warmed up to increase the open time to about 45 minutes. Then get ready to scramble.

One good thing about something this massive, it can be used to drive itself together. Just lift and end and drop. Lift and drop. Lift and drop. Couple of those and the top drives home to the shoulders on the legs.

So just a little more to do today like saw off the tops of the tenons that com through the bench before trying to plane it flat. And I made the glide about 1-1/2" too long so I need to saw off the end and re-shape it a bit. And third, the nut for the back of the leg vice screw had to be modified because it was unshouldered. I should get it back today and I can lay the bench over on its face and mortise it in pretty quickly.

Looking good!

on your end vise, why do you have such a thick vise chop?

The rods and screw for the Jorgensen vice are LONG!. This way I make sure they don't strike the leg nor did I have to drill clearance holes through the leg.

Also, because I can.

Really nice... Lot's of us would like to have a workbench so well made although I think we all have it on our 'someday' list.
How will you deal with a floor out of level once you pick the spot for the bench? Cutting or wedging?

Since this will get moved around the shop area I'll eventually add some flip down casters to help with that. And I'm going to look into ways to adding heavy duty leveler feet. But until then, shims work fine.

Where it rests now, I can move it a foot or so and it stays steady but in just the right spot it will rock. The shop floor is really wonky.

Really Great looking Bench RW.

Question on the levelers once you find them. Will they have rubber feet to stop the table from sliding?

But don't call me on moving day

Well, the benches are in service now. Today I got several coats of BLO/SPIRITS/POLY mopped on and they will be dry to use tomorrow. Next weekend I'll hit them one more time with the soup and then the top can be waxed to really shed the glue.

Still on the punch list:
* Handle for the leg vice.
* Glue leather onto the jaw faces
* Cut and shiplap boards for the shelf.
* Flip-down casters.

But otherwise they can be used and have been used for at least the last two weeks. But I needed to scrape down the tops as people had been gluing stuff on them and there wasn't any finish in place. At least now glue will be easier to clean off the top.

Looking good!

SWEET! Congratulations on a job well done!

Awesome workbench! Those should be fun to try and move.