dowels for workbench joints

[Chris Henke]

I have a Dowelmax and am in the process of designing/planning for a small Roubo-style bench made of fir. Would it be crazy to make the joints on the stretchers or even fastening the legs to the top with a load of dowels vs mortise/tenons? Since I am a beginner, I could use the experience with M&T work, but seems like the dowels could make a strong joint and go quicker.

TIA for any advice.

Chris

[Todd Burch]

I always like to answer these types of questions with... you'll learn more by doing and experiencing, than by asking.

It seems you know that mortise and tenon joinery is the proper joint already.

[ian maybury]

I'd be cautious unless you could get enough dowels in to end up with similar cross sectional (and even then it won't deliver the same depth of section or bending resistance) and long grain gluing areas to a mortice and tenon.

Dowels are strong in pure shear (loaded at 90 deg to the length of the dowel), but unless the whole lot is e.g. bolted up tight so the leg to stretcher joints can't get levered open a little there's got to be some risk of having a dowel fail in a racking situation which would apply some bending force to the joint.

The analogy might be to think about how easy it is to bend say a 1in high stack of unglued veneers versus a piece of solid of the same section.

ian

[Michael Peet]

Dowels will almost certainly go quicker - both to completion and to failure

I think it would be hard to beat a properly drawbored M&T joint for this application.

Mike

[Mike Henderson]

Dowels will almost certainly go quicker - both to completion and to failure

I think it would be hard to beat a properly drawbored M&T joint for this application.

Mike

+1 Go with the M&T if you want it to last, although I wouldn't drawbore them - I'd just do plain glued M&T.

Mike

[Martin Melderis]

Couldn't have said it better myself. Contained in Todd's two profound short sentences, is a lot of sage advice; if you think about it.

[David Kuzdrall]

When I built my bench (not roubo style) I needed a way to allow the top to move seasonally and my solution was to key it in place with dowels to the front legs and let it float over the rear legs. It has been 1.5 years since this build and it works perfectly, the front is perfectly aligned with the front of the legs and I can confirm that the back moves properly while staying flat (it is 3" thick SYP).

All the other joints are M&T and should be for strength when doing heavy plane work.

[Jim Matthews]

The chief advantage of the Ruobo design is the massive top loading the mechanical dovetail joints together tightly.

I like the fixtures of the Ruobo top, but not the leg arrangement. I use a cabinet under the bench, with drawers and a sliding leg across the front.
If you're considering alternatives to the most traditional design, have a look over at the Benchcrafted Shaker bench page for some ideas.

FWIW - I think you will find the dowel system adequate to normal use, and you'll have a useable tool much sooner.

jim
wpt, ma