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.