Roubo Folding Bookstand

[Rick Erickson]

Has anyone attempted a Neander Roubo Folding bookstand?

I took the lead from Roy Underhill documented in the Feb 2011 issue of Pop Wood magazine. Christopher Schwarz made a video showing the hinge marking and cutting. I took it a step further to show the rest of it. It's all Neander except for drilling the 1/16" holes in the hinges for the fret saw. They have to be perfectly plum and I don't have the confidence in my hand drilling to do that right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU-rncivcdk

[Jim Rimmer]

I'm not a Neander but that was a great video and a beautiful project.

[Caleb Larru]

Nice job Rick. Thanks for posting that. I enjoyed it immensely.

[Bob Warfield]

Rick, Thanks for the video. I gotta tell ya, I got really nervous a few times watching it. It turned out great! I don't know if I have the skill, make that eyesight, to make one of those.
Thanks,
Bob Warfield

[Joe A Faulkner]

Bravo. Kudos to your video crew as well. What a great project!

[Rick Erickson]

Thanks for all the kind words! It was a fun project to try (especially after seeing Scharz's video).

Bob, You were nervous? I think I lost a few handfuls of hair on the first two I made. The video was shot on the second one. The third one I made actually came out the best. I rounded over the hinges on that one. The video shows the simpler 45-degree paring.

Joe, My 13 year old son shot the video. I was very pleased with what he came up with. I wasn't paying much attention while he was shooting. I narrated some of the steps but didn't like it so we decided to just overlay it with music. The piano was a whole lot better than anything I contributed verbally.

[gary Zimmel]

Real nice video Rick. And real nice work.
Ripping a chunk of wood like that wide would be a test of ones skills. Nicely done.

[Marv Werner]

Hi Rick,

Really enjoyed your video. And that's some impressive woodworking also.

Hope your two saws are working out well for you. I was hoping to see them in the video.

[Rick Erickson]

Marv, the saws are great! I couldn't be more pleased. I forgot to shoot footage of the initial dimensioning of the wood. You would have seen them there. I may be contacting you down the road for a few finer PPIs.

[Michael Peet]

Excellent work, Rick. Sawing is easily my least favorite neander task, and you pulled it off well.

Mike

[Kevin Lucas]

Nice! That was the first Woodwrights show I ever saw and have been wanting to try it for years. You're taking away all my excuses )

[Rob Young]

Yep! Just the other weekend I did one in American Chestnut. The wood was salvage from old church pews. Worked reasonably well but I'm no great fan of chestnut, at least the samples I have. Weird changing density, and not the way pine does as you move through early- and late-wood. I would find pockets of softer wood as I chiseled. Didn't seem like rot either, color and texture matched but I could go from sweetly chiseling to chunky just by moving over 3/8" in some places. Odd.

Anyway, I've got a cherry version in the works.

I'll find my photos later today and post the finished Chestnut one.

[Jim Koepke]

Great video Rick.

Is there much planing after cutting the halves apart?

jtk

[Rob Young]

DSCN2127.jpg
American Chestnut

[Rick Erickson]

Jim, I guess it depends on how well you ripped it ;-) My first one didn't get too well. I lost about 3/32" of thickness trying to smooth the faces. I had a bow in the middle that I had to plane out. The second one went better. I went cross-grain with my 5 1/2 as close to the hinges as I could get and then used a shoulder plane at the hinge joints. A little 220 at the end to clean things up. I tried a hand scraper but couldn't get good leverage with the awkwardness of the faces when the stand was open.

Rob, I couldn't imagine doing this in Chestnut. Walnut is just such a perfect hand tool wood.