My Roubo Build

[Michael Peet]

My Roubo is finally done! This was a huge project and quite a challenge to a noob such as myself, but after more than a year of work it turned out to my satisfaction. I used the plans in Schwarz's book, modified slightly to accomodate the Benchcrafted wagon and leg vises. I briefly considered doing a full-on split top per the Benchcrafted plans, but in the end I decided I wanted a single slab. It is a bench for hand tools, but I used every power tool I own except the palm sander.

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In February 2010 I took delivery of one of Horizon's ash Roubo bundles (two days after I ordered it, no less):

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I had no jointer, planer, or drill press. I had exactly one bench plane, an old #3. No good clamps. In fact, pretty much all I had was lumber and exhuberence. As the chairman exclaims on Iron Chef, "let the battle begin!"

The first thing I wanted to do was get the work off the floor, so I built a pair of sawhorses:

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If you want to build a bench but are hesitant because you don't have a bench upon which to build, this is how you do it. Lay your lumber across a couple sturdy sawhorses and clamp the boards together. It's perfectly adequate as a temporary work surface, as you will see later in this thread. These are about 40" wide, which provides plenty of space to shift the boards around while you work. The canted legs give them plenty of stability. They also break down for storage later.

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The next thing I decided to do was try to 4-square some of the smaller boards using my #3. I quickly discovered that this was not ideal, and traded Lie-Nielsen some cash for a #7. I would put some mileage on this plane.

[Michael Peet]

Now that I had a proper jointer plane, but still no clue, I decided to do the leg laminations. Since I had never before done either stock preparation or lamination, this seemed like the best place to begin. The lumber in the Horizon bundle is thick, so if I chose my stock correctly it meant I only needed one lamination per leg. The relatively short length of the legs also meant smaller mating surfaces compared to those needed for the top construction.

I wanted 5"x5" legs, and only one lamination per leg. This meant I needed boards a little over 5" wide and 2 1/2" thick. I also wanted to minimize waste, so I was aiming to get 3 32" leg sections out of one pair of boards, and the final leg from one additional board. With these constraints in mind, the boards for the legs selected themselves.

The point of no return:

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And the deed is done:

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Now I will mention that although I do not have a powered jointer or planer, I do have a pretty well-tuned bandsaw. I eventually arrived at this process for 4-squaring:

1. Flatten one side with my #7
2. Flatten an adjacent side with the #7 and make it square to the first side
3. Use the bandsaw on the two remaining sides, as this will leave them nominally parallel to the two prepared sides
4. Remove the bandsaw marks with the #7

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Before I knew it I was ready for my first glue-up!

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And here it is, wood in clamps. Exciting:

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I previously mentioned that I had no good clamps, but I knew I would need some. I read all the clamp threads here on SMC and eventually decided on the Jet parallel clamps. I got a bunch of 32"s, which would be needed for the top lamination, and a bunch of 12"s which is just a handy size. They have been a great investment.

After the glue dried I just cleaned up the joint with handplanes and made sure everything was nice and square:

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You'll notice that I am cheating here and using my old "bench". This was before I discovered that I could use the lumber-and-sawhorses arrangement. This area became a dedicated sharpening station.

Okay, three more just like that and then I set them all aside for a long time while I made the top.

[Michael Peet]

Per the Schwarz plans, I was going for around 96" x 24" x 4". In reality, I wanted to get it as long and as thick as the lumber would allow, and ended up at just under 98" long, just under 24" wide, and around 4 1/4" thick.

I'm not going to lie. Preparing the boards for the top was tedious, and it took me a very long time. In fact this was the most time-consuming part of the whole project. Some of the boards were a little crooked; this was the worst:

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So, lots of this:

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As I finished a piece, I clamped it in with the others. Here you can see very rudimentary benchtop taking shape, complete with tool tray:

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After a few months I had enough done for the top, minus the dog strip and front board. I was careful to indicate the best direction for planing on each board, since I would be flattening this by hand:

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Next, I'll need a dog strip.

[Michael Peet]

After much debate, I decided to go with rectangular dogs. Mostly because it was harder, but also because they look cool. You know, practical reasons.

So I slapped together a couple prototype dogs, and fabricated a jig for my router. The dog holes are tilted forward by 3°:

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I wanted to remove as much material as possible before using the router. Have I mentioned that I hate routers? No other tool I own has the ability to ruin a project as quickly (hint: this is known as "foreshadowing"). Anyway, I wasted the material with the SCMS set at a matching 3° and a bench chisel:

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Finally, it was time to finish them off with the router:

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And then, disaster struck.

[Michael Peet]

I own a DeWalt 621 plunge router. In fact, I bought it to use for this project, since I didn't have one. In fact, this was my first time using it. I have come to learn that it has one serious design flaw. The fine depth adjustment mechanism is a long screw. You turn it one way to raise it and the other to lower it. There is nothing to lock it down, and while in use it can creep.

And creep it did. By the third hole the bit was running nearly 1/8" deeper than the first one. I noticed that part of the jig was being nibbled away on each pass, and thought "hmm, it shouldn't be doing that". These are supposed to be 7/8" deep:

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At the time, I did not know about this problem, however, and assumed the bit had crept out of the collet. I never had this problem on my old fixed base router, so I planned to switch over to that to finish the rest of them. But first I had to fix this mess. All these slots need to have a uniform depth so that the dog holes would be the same width and aligned with each other. You just had to have rectangular dogs, didn't you, smart guy?

I had two options. 1) I could go with the 1" depth; 2) I could plane down the surface until the deepest one was at the desired 7/8" depth and then continue. Either way I would have to re-do the first two to bring them down to the same depth as the third one. The board was thick enough, and I did not want thicker dogs, so I opted for 2). It was more work, of course, which is probably the real reason I chose it.

Unfortunately, removing all those slots of material must have relieved some internal stresses in the board, and it would not sit flat for planing. I had to get creative:

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Finally I got it planed down to the right depth, and I was able to start moving forward again. I moved the pattern bit to the old Porter-Cable and I banged out the rest of the slots with no further drama:

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In the end they fit pretty well:

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I wanted to keep the insides of the dogs as glue-free as possible during glue-up, so I clamped the two boards together and drilled a hole near each end for some short guide pins:

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These prevented the boards from slipping during clamping, and it worked as well as I'd hoped. I just had some minor squeeze out to clean out of each hole after it set up a little; much easier than trying to clean smeared glue out of such a small space.

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The nearly-completed dog strip:

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This needs to be a specifc width for the Benchcrafted wagon vise plans, so I still need to do that. Also note the lone hole off on the left side; this is for the wagon vise dog block. I simply disassembled the router jig and re-assembled it backwards so that this hole would have the 3° tilt oriented the right way. I will cut this section off later, after the final sizing to width. This will ensure that the dog block is the same thickness as the strip and that the hole is aligned with the others.

Anyway, if you have the DeWalt 621 router, do yourself a favor and get an M8 nut to use as a jamb nut on the fine depth adjuster.

[Michael Peet]

By this time I had started gluing up the lamination for the benchtop. The sections were getting quite heavy, and I hurt my back somehow wrestling with them. So this seemed like a good opportunity to take a break from the heavy stuff and make the dogs.

Now, I love Lie-Neilsen. I will be a customer for life. However, I just couldn't find it within myself to spend $50 for a pair of wooden dogs. They look simple to make. Also, I wanted one for each hole because a small investment in effort now allows for lots of laziness later. If I had really been thinking I would have made a couple spares. Oh well.

I picked up a small piece of 3/4" ash at the local lumber store for a couple bucks, and had a thin scrap lying around that I could use for the 1/8" thick springs:

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Ripped the board down on the table saw and planed them uniform:

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I decided I wanted to make these a little longer than my prototypes, with the other dimensions staying the same. The prototypes are about 5 1/2" long, whereas these are 7". The length was pretty much dictated by size of the board I bought.

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Next I cut out the relief for the dog face over on the bandsaw:

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[Michael Peet]

The crosscut sled came in really handy for making the dogs. Make one setup, run all the pieces through. Two or twenty, the effort is about the same. After sanding (bah) out the bandsaw marks, I cut the angle for the spring. Note that this cut needs to be on the opposite side for the dog riding in the wagon vise shuttle. I just eyeballed this angle:

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Because the dogs are tilted forward a few degrees, the back edge would be the highest point when raised and would most likely be hit by a plane eventually. Since they are wood, it wouldn't damage the plane, but I would still like to try to prevent it:

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Gluing the springs on. I tried to use the most flat-sawn pieces I could find for the springs, because I thought they would be more springy that way. I have no idea if this is true:

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After adding a little leather to the faces, trimming the springs flush with the sides, and easing the edges a little these are done:

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There, $375 worth of dogs.

[Michael Peet]

The Benchcrafted instructions call for excavating a cavity out of the underside of the benchtop for the screw and shuttle. I decided to save myself a little work, and picked a board that happened to be pretty close in width to the width of the cavity. Then I just cut a rectangle out of the end of it; the cavity will be formed now automatically during glue-up:

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This scrap will eventually become my planing stop:

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Gluing the dog strip to the top. The cavity is on the right, under the wax paper-wrapped block of wood. That block is there to align the end of the dog strip flush with the inside face of the cavity. Later after reading the instructions I learned that the cavity can actually be shorter since it's only clearance for the screw:

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I also built the hole for the planing stop into the lamination. This will ensure that it's straight and square:

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By now I had two large sections for the top lamination. I glued the individual boards first in pairs, then planed them flush and flat. Then I glued each of two pairs to each other, and again planed them flat. That left me with two 100+ lb pieces (I weighed them), so the top is already over 200 lbs and that's without front board and wagon vise. In retrospect, I might have done some unnecessary planing there, but I didn't know any better.

[Michael Peet]

Time to join the two main sections. When I started the laminations, I could compensate for MINOR fit discrepancies with clamping. But as the sections grew wider, they became more rigid and demanded better fits before gluing. These two sections had to mate perfectly. It took me a little while, but I finally got them fitting nice and tight all along the length.

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After the glue dried overnight I gave both sides a good flattening with my #7. Since I had been flattening each subsection after each glue-up, and made every effort to align these two sections as flush as possible during the final glue-up, this flattening was actually less work than I had feared it might be.

The next step towards finishing the top is trimming the end flush and making the tenon for the endcap. I decided to build a quick jig to help me keep the tenon shoulders co-planer. It's just a box-like structure that wraps all the way around the benchtop, so I can register the tracksaw guide rail up against it on both the top and bottom. I thought this would be more accurate than trying to saw to pencil lines.

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To make the tenon, I just moved the jig back a little at a time and cut a few kerfs, with the final cut being at around 1" (the tenon length). This final cut would become the shoulder. At this point I flipped the top over with the jig in place and made the cut for the other shoulder, then worked my way back towards the end with a few more kerfs. Then I cleaned them out with a hammer, chisel, and rabbet plane:

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[Michael Peet]

It's time to make the endcap. Up until now, most of this build has been pretty straightforward gruntwork. The endcap installation, however, was intimidating me. I needed to do some really accurate work now to ensure the endcap mortise fit snugly on the tenon. The holes for the wagon vise needed to be precisely located. And there was yet more precision required for the holes for the bench bolts that would be used to join the endcap to the benchtop. Not to mention the giant dovetail that would join the front board to the endcap.

I had a couple cutoffs at this point that I could use for the endcap. Being the optimist, I picked the best one.

I mentioned earlier that I lacked a drill press. Well, I really lucked out here because I got one for the price of removing it from my uncle's parents' basement. Now, it's only got a 4" quill stroke, and it's not electronic variable speed, there's no table lift mechanism and the table doesn't tilt. However, the table is square to the quill, and did I mention the price? This tool became invaluable for the remainder of the build. I'm so thankful to my uncle and his folks.

So I marked the outline of the 1 3/4" tenon onto the inside of the endcap. I remember this being pretty difficult for some reason. I think I needed a third hand or something. Then, over to the drill press with a 1 3/4" Forstner bit:

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I went out of the lines a little bit on a couple. I learned two things when doing this: 1) use better clamps on the drill press; 2) don't drill adjacent holes consecutively - instead, drill two holes and leave a space between them. Then drill out between them. The resistance will be symmetrical that way. I extended the mortise about half an inch beyond the end of the tenon to allow for wood movement. I also switched to a smaller bit for the thinner portion of the tenon that is above the wagon vise cavity:

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After cleanup with a chisel, it doesn't look too shabby:

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And eventually it even fit:

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Phew. One task down, three to go.

[Michael Peet]

Next I decided to make the dovetail. I have a little box full of practice dovetail joints I did about a year ago, so I felt this would be the same, only bigger. One major difference is that obviously I will not be able to stand the 8-foot long board on end to saw the tails. Also, I would not be able to use my dovetail saw because it's not deep enough. So, from a suggestion in the Benchcrafted instructions, I made a jig for the bandsaw. I think it's a 1:8 slope, and reversible so I can cut both sides of each tail:

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Next I cut the shoulders off, leaving plenty of room to pare down to the line. Stop laughing.

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Then I chopped out the center portion of waste:

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And pared right up to the knife lines with a chisel. I don't possess sawing skills, but I do have time, patience, and a chisel.

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Next I carefully marked the pin locations from the tails using a marking knife. These I could saw out with my dovetail saw:

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And once again I compensate for terrible sawing with careful paring:

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On to the drilling.

[Michael Peet]

This boring turned out not to be as hard as I had feared. Just tape the template onto the endcap, then carefully mark and drill.

Outside:

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Inside:

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Now for the hard part. I really stressed over this operation. I decided to use three Benchcrafted bench bolts to attach the endcap to the benchtop. Overkill, probably; these are some long, beefy bolts. Their installation is going to require 6" deep holes straight into endgrain, followed by 2" inch deep cross holes from the bottom that intersect perfectly with the endgrain holes. If the cross holes do not hit dead center, I will not be able to thread the bolts into the captured nuts.

So I marked the hole locations onto the tenon from the endcap, and built a quick guide for my hand drill to try to keep the hole perpendicular. Here's the guide with the extra long bit I had to buy for this task:

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This drilling took forever. Forever. The bit got hot very quickly and I had to constantly let it cool off. But finally I did reach the required depth on all three holes:

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My final task is drilling the cross holes for the captured nuts. I will not know whether the previous step gave me straight, true holes until this is done. Because these required such precision, I opted not to do them with the hand drill:

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Hey, if you can't bring your work to the machine, bring your machine to the work. I was thrilled to discover that the drill head could be lowered like that. Later I learned I didn't even need to remove the cover. Here it is after drilling the cross-holes:

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Initial inspection seemed to reveal that the long holes intersected the cross holes in the middle, and sure enough, they fit:

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All that preparation paid off, this time. The endcap was done, and I breathed a big sigh of relief. All I needed to do now was permanently attach it. I glued the dovetail and an inch or two of the tenon on the other side of the wagon vise. The rest of the endcap floats and is held on with the bench bolts. I think I made the holes big enough to allow for some wood movement. Time will tell.

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You'll notice I have the dog block stuck in there to keep the spacing right. Later I will take a couple shavings off the side of the block so it will slide nice and easy in the slot.

But dang, glue all over the nice flat top.

[Michael Peet]

The last step for the wagon vise installation is the tracks. They are recessed into the bottom about a quarter inch or so.

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Time to bring out my old friend the router. I think by this time I had discovered the jamb nut thing so depth control was not an issue, fortunately. Unfortunately I found that the stock edge guide would not allow me to reach the far mortise, so I had to make a substitute:

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I also realized I was going to need more support over that large cavity to feel comfortable doing this. I found a piece of scrap, taped it in, and planed it down flush with the surface:

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The routing went smoothly, surprisingly. I squared off the ends with a chisel:

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Up until this point I had no idea whether or not the hardware was going to fit. I had measured, and it all looked good, but you never know. Therefore I was relieved to find that everything was good to go! Just needed to cut a section out of the dog block to fit the shuttle and screw it in.

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Unfortunately, I must have not marked the screw locations for the dog block carefully enough. The pilot holes I drilled were apparently off center by just enough so that when I fully tighten the screws the block is torqued against the side of its channel, and the rubbing adds more friction than I like. I will need to fix this someday, but I do not want to make a new dog block. Any ideas?

Anyway, the top is done for now.

[Michael Peet]

Next I need to start putting the base together. I have not done but a couple small practice mortise and tenon joints up to this point, plus the one in the endcap, so I am somewhat apprehensive about the joinery from here on out. Well, only one way to learn, right?

I dug the legs out from wherever I had stashed them almost a year ago. I spent a little time and brought them all to the same dimensions and squared them all up again before doing anything else with them. Then I needed to trim the bottoms flush. They wouldn't fit in the SCMS. I didn't want to do it on the table saw, because it would require multiple passes and I didn't think I could get all the cuts even. So I cobbled together this thing, which I don't mind telling you did not work at all:

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It came out totally unsquare. Dumb idea, and now I had shortened the leg by a quarter inch. Oh well, the tenons will have to be shorter than called for in the plan. Finally I broke down and did them on the table saw like I should have done in the first place. You can see how out-of-square the bandsaw contraption made it:

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Then out came my awesome crosscut saw and I finished it off. For the next three I made four passes each on the table saw so there was only a small half-inch plug in the center to saw by hand:

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Even though I was careful, there was still much planing of endgrain with my old low-angle block plane to true these all up. Next step was to cut the tenon shoulders in the top of the leg. I did these on the crosscut sled with a stop to register against the bottom of the leg. I referenced the bottom of the leg so the height of each leg to the underside of the top would be equal. They came out pretty uniform:

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I then cut the cheeks on the bandsaw:

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And did a little cleanup with the rabbet block plane:

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Finally, I finished with a 1/4" chamfer around the bottom:

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[Michael Peet]

I started work on the stretchers with some quick 4-squaring, using the same method I used previously. These went pretty quickly because they are a lot smaller than the boards for the top.

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I debated long and hard about the sliding deadman. For one thing, I did not want to do the milling of the triangular cross-section guide on the front stretcher. For another, I did not want to have to route out the channel on the underside of the top. I read many threads. I did some soul-searching. In the end, it seemed most people who had them were glad they did, and so I opted once again not to take the easy way out. Sliding deadman it is. So now I have to mill that funky front stretcher profile. Fortunately, I had a scrap left over from cutting the stretcher to length, and decided to use it to setup all the cuts. Turns out that was a good move, because I messed one of them up.

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Here it is, after much protesting and burning from the table saw, and subsequent cleanup with hand planes:

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Next, I trimmed the other stretchers down to the nominal height of the front one:

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Finally, since I had committed to go with the sliding deadman, I had to route the channel in the underside of the benchtop. A 5/8" straight bit did the trick. Note the replacement edge guide fence; the stock one is a joke. The bearing surface comprises two separate plastic pieces, and on mine they were not coplaner so it rocked back and forth. My replacement is nice and long, which made this task very easy. I put a clamp at each end for stops, and then squared up the corners with a chisel:

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