I built my first Roubo in 2005 out of yellow pine. Loved it to death. I sold it after I had the opportunity to build this beauty in 2013. It has remained my workbench ever since.
I don’t know why, but this bench seems to receive more abuse than any other bench in our storefront. Perhaps it just looks like it can take a punch. Or an auger. Or a sawcut. It doesn’t look any worse for the wear, however.
When I first built it, I omitted the parallel guide on the leg vise, which is how A.J. Roubo shows it in his 18th century text. I worked that way for more than a year. It’s not a bad way to work; you just slide a scrap between the vise jaw and the leg at the floor. But a Crisscross mechanism is much more convenient. So I was glad to upgrade (even though it was difficult to do on an assembled oak the size of a baby woolly mammoth).
That was the major change. I also added a swing-out seat (it’s vintage; I recommend you buy a Benchcrafted version). And some one-piece bench hooks, which people are constantly stealing. I might make some for all the benches in the coming weeks.
Products shown in the video (these are not affiliate links):
Peter Ross planing stop, tommy bar and iron ring for the hub
We’re in the middle of building 20 (!!) French workbenches this week down in Barnesville, Ga., a small town south of Atlanta. Here, Bo Childs has graciously lent us his ample workshop and machinery (Martin planers and shapers!) to get the job done in a week.
Benchcrafted organized this massive event, which requires months of preparation (years, actually if you count the sourcing and air-drying of the wood). And like everything Jameel Abraham and Father John touch, it’s just as it should be.
There’s lots of help – you can ask Jeff Miller, Will Myers, Don Williams, Ron Brese, Megan Fitzpatrick or me for a hand with layout, joint fitting or assembly. The lunches are great (who eats bread pudding at lunch? Apparently, I do now). And the wood is just right. We’re using oak sourced from France that has been air-drying for more than a decade.
Some of the students have been a little bemused by the knots, splits and bug holes in the wood, but I keep telling them: That’s exactly what the old benches look like. I don’t want furniture-grade wood for a French workbench. Embrace the defects.
And I think we’re going to get everyone assembled by the end of day on Friday. I probably won’t get to see it, however. I need to be on a plane out of Cincinnati by 6 p.m. Friday to start a chairmaking class on Monday morning. (It’s a stupid way to make a living, but it beats working.)
I don’t know if Benchcrafted and Bo will ever do this again. If they do, I hope they’ll ask me to lend a hand again. And if you ever get a chance to participate, I recommend you start saving your pennies now.
Do you need a new workbench – perhaps one based on traditional forms? We probably have a resource to help. Below are just a few of our workbench offerings – in video and book form. Plus, a link to video tours of workbenches Chris and others have built in the last 25 years.
Video: “Roubo Workbench: By Hand & Power” Building a workbench using giant slabs of solid timber is easier than you think. Christopher Schwarz and Will Myers, who have built hundreds of workbenches in their careers, show you how to do it with simple tools and wet wood.
“Roubo Workbench: By Hand & Power” walks you through the construction of an 8′-long slab workbench starting with wet chunks of inexpensive red oak. Will and Chris show you how to tackle each operation using only hand tools, only electric tools or a clever combination of both.
The 4:19-long video also includes copious amounts of workbench design details – including how to scale the height, width and length of the bench for your work – so you can customize your bench for your body. There’s also an extensive discussion of basic workholding – where to put your holdfast holes and how you can work easily without a tail vise.
Video: “The Naked Woodworker” “The Naked Woodworker” video seeks to answer the simple question: How do you get started in woodworking when you have nothing? No tools. No bench. No skills. And no knowledge of where to begin.
Veteran woodworker and teacher Mike Siemsen helps you take your first steps into the craft without spending a lot of money or spending years setting up shop. In fact, Mike shows you how to acquire a decent set of tools and build a workbench and sawbench for about $600 or $700 – something you can accomplish during a few weekends of work.
“The Naked Woodworker” begins at a Mid-West Tool Collectors Association’s regional meeting with Mike sifting through, evaluating, haggling and buying the tools needed to begin building furniture. Then, at Mike’s Minnesota shop, he fixes up the tools he bought. He rehabs the planes, sharpens the saws and fixes up the braces – all on camera.
On the second video in the set, Mike builds a sawbench and a fully functional workbench using home-center materials. Both the sawbench and workbench are amazingly clever. You don’t need a single machine or power tool to make them. And they work incredibly well.
The bench is based on Peter Nicholson’s early 19th-century design. It is remarkably solid and is perfect for a life of woodworking with hand or power tools.
Book: “The Anarchist’s Workbench” “The Anarchist’s Workbench” is – on the one hand – a detailed plan for a simple workbench that can be built using construction lumber and basic woodworking tools. But it’s also the story of Christopher Schwarz’s 20-year journey researching, building and refining historical workbenches until there was nothing left to improve.
“The Anarchist’s Workbench” is the third and final book in the “anarchist” series, and it attempts to cut through the immense amount of misinformation about building a proper bench. It helps answer the questions that dog every woodworker: What sort of bench should I build? What wood should I use? What dimensions should it be? And what vises should I attach to it?
“The Anarchist’s Workbench” also seeks to open your eyes to simpler workbench designs that eschew metal fasteners and instead rely only on the time-tested mortise-and-tenon joint that’s secured with a drawbored peg. The bench plan in the book is based on a European design that spread across the continent in the 1500s. It has only 12 joints, weighs more than 300 pounds and requires less than $300 in lumber. And while the bench is immensely simple, it is a versatile design that you can adapt and change as you grow as a woodworker.
Book: “The Workbench Book” First published in 1987, “The Workbench Book” by Scott Landis remains the most complete book on the most important tool in the woodworker’s shop.
“The Workbench Book” is a richly illustrated guided tour of the world’s best workbenches — from a traditional Shaker bench to the mass-produced Workmate. Author and workbench builder Scott Landis visited dozens of craftsmen, observing them at work and listening to what they had to say about their benches. The result is an intriguing and illuminating account of each bench’s strengths and weaknesses, within the context of a vibrant woodworking tradition.
This new 248-page hardbound edition from Lost Art Press ensures “The Workbench Book” will be available to future generations of woodworkers. Produced and printed in the United States, this classic text is printed on FSC-certified recycled paper and features a durable sewn binding designed to last generations. The 1987 text remains the same in this edition and includes a foreword by Christopher Schwarz.
Book: “Ingenious Mechanicks” Workbenches with screw-driven vises are a fairly modern invention. For more than 2,000 years, woodworkers built complex and beautiful pieces of furniture using simpler benches that relied on pegs, wedges and the human body to grip the work. While it’s easy to dismiss these ancient benches as obsolete, they are – at most – misunderstood.
Christopher Schwarz has been building these ancient workbenches and putting them to work in his shop to build all manner of furniture. Absent any surviving ancient instruction manuals for these benches, Schwarz relied on hundreds of historical paintings of these benches for clues as to how they worked. Then he replicated the devices and techniques shown in the paintings to see how (or if) they worked.
“Ingenious Mechanicks” is about this journey into the past and takes the reader from Pompeii, which features the oldest image of a Western bench, to a Roman fort in Germany to inspect the oldest surviving workbench and finally to his shop in Kentucky, where he recreated three historical workbenches and dozens of early jigs.
And here are links to video tours of workbench forms that are in the Lost Art Press shop (and three that used to be). (Most of them were built by Chris when he was at Popular Woodworking Magazine.)
The $175 Workbench – now our shipping station when it’s not in use for a class) The Power Tool Workbench – currently in the Horse Garage – meant to be used during a class by the person not teaching…but it’s almost always covered with wood and other supplies, so we use the low bench in the shop instead). English Joiner’s Bench – in the shop, behind Chris’ “Anarchist’s Workbench” – it’s a hair taller than the AWB, so it sometimes functions as a stop at the back of his bench. It is the most level spot in our shop – so whomever is working at it during a chair class gets kicked off when it’s time to level legs. The Cherry Roubo – now at our general contractor’s house. This one – while gorgeous – is just a bit too narrow for efficient and comfortable use during many of our classes, so we gave it to one of its biggest fans. (The size was limited by the width of slabs available at the time of building – had the wood allowed, it could have been wider.) The Holtzapffel Workbench – in the front window. It’s original twin-screw vise is in the basement; for most classes, the leg vise is more useful. And when I’m teaching a tool chest class, I prefer a Moxon vise atop the bench to raise the work to a comfortable sawing level for more students. Vintage Ulmia – now with a friend. A good bench – just not great for us. The Glulam Workbench (aka Gluebo) – now in my basement, for which I’m thankful. I built my other bench, a wee Roubo, to go on the second floor of my old house, and it’s too small for a lot of the house-scale work I’m now doing! Moravian Workbench – in the front window, back to back with the Holtzapffel. This one was built by our friend Will Myers. French Oak Roubo – this behemoth is back to bench with my bench. Lightweight Commercial Bench – Chris bought this one for a Fine Woodworking article on beefing up a wobbly bench. I believe it’s now at his daughter Katherine’s house.
In “Saws, Planes, and Scorps,” David Heim celebrates contemporary makers of quality woodworking hand tools and workbenches, from one-person shops that specialize in one or a few tools, to four larger toolworks that offer a wide range of tools.
It’s a who’s who in the hand tool world, with interesting vignettes of the makers and pictures of their tools, arranged by tool type (and some makers appear in more than one section), and an introduction by Joshua Klein.
I could have simply included a picture of the table of contents…but it was more fun to test my memory of “toolworks vs. tool work vs. tool works” for various companies. (If I got one wrong, apologies.) The chapters are as follows:
“Prominent Toolworks:” Lie-Nielsen Toolworks, Lee Valley Tools/Veritas, Bridge City Tool Works and Woodpeckers.
“Workbenches:” Benchcrafted, Plate 11 Woodworking, Frank Strazza, RE-CO BKLYN, Lake Erie Toolworks, Acer-Ferrous Toolworks, Texas Heritage Woodworks, Blum Tool Co. (includes sidebars/profiles on Christopher Schwarz, the French Oak Roubo Project and the Japanese approach).
“Squares, Gauges, Marking Knives, and Awls:” Colen Clenton, Vesper Tools, Blue Spruce Toolworks, Bridge City Tool Works, Sterling Tool Works, Shenandoah Tool Works, Blackburn Tools, Glen-Drake Toolworks, Florip Toolworks, Hamilton Toolworks, DMF Tool Works, Seth Gould and Czeck Edge Hand Tool (includes a sidebar on the sector).
“Hand Saws:” Skelton Saws, Bad Axe Tool Works, Florip Toolworks, Tools for Working Wood, with sidebars/profiles on Marco Terenzi and Blackburn Saws saw kits.
“Hand Planes:” Holtey Classic Hand Planes, Sauer & Steiner Toolworks, The Lazarus Handplane Co., Daed Toolworks, Brese Plane, Bill Carter, BJS Planes and Woodworking, Old Street Tool, M.S. Bickford, Philly Planes, J. Wilding, Voigt Planes, Red Rose Reproductions, Blum Tool Co., Bridge City Tool Works, HNT Gordon & Co., Scott Meek Woodworks, Benedetto, and Walke Moore Tools (includes sidebars/profiles on St. James Bay Tool Co., Ron Hock and James Krenov).
“Hammers, Mallets, and Chisels:” Old Soldier Toolworks, Blue Spruce Toolworks, Crucible Tool, Shenandoah Tool Works, Sterling Tool Works, HNT Gordon & Co., Blum Tool Co., Brent Bailey Forge, Barr Specialty Tools and Brese Plane (includes sidebars/profiles on GreenWood, Seth Gould’s embellished hammers and Elkhead Tools screwdrivers).
“Spokeshaves, Drawknives, Scorps, and Travishers:” Caleb James Maker, Dave’s Shaves, Moberg Tools, HNT Gordon & Co., Cariboo Blades, Barr Specialty Tools, Old Soldier Toolworks, Claire Minihan Woodworks, Elia Bizzarri Hand Tool Woodworking, Crown Plane and The Windsor Workshop (includes profiles on Peter Galbert and Russ Filbeck).
“Adzes, Hatches, and Knives:” Jason A. Lonon Toolmaker, Start Raven Studios, Cariboo Blades, Brent Baily Forge, North Bay Forge, Drake Knives, Craft Lab, Pinewood Forge, Preferred Edge Carving Knives & Supplies and Deepwoods Ventures.
Heim’s selection of “exceptional woodworking tools and their makers” is informed by his experience as a woodworker and former associate editor for Fine Woodworking magazine, and for the most part, I agree with his choices, but in a book that features mostly what are arguably “boutique” hand tools, the inclusion of Woodpeckers is curious. I’m not dissing their tools, but when I think of that company, I think red, anodized table saw fences and drill press tables (and a few marking and measuring tools). And I was kind of surprised that Tools for Working Wood didn’t show up under “Prominent Toolworks” given the company’s range – or at least appear in multiple categories. Also, why include Bridge City in both prominent tool works and hand planes, but not Lie-Nielsen or Veritas in any of the categories? Still, I’d be hard pressed to choose and sort all the makers I know into categories, either – and no doubt someone (many someones) would take issue with my choices.
I do think this book belongs on the shelves of woodworkers. It’s fun to learn a bit about who makes the tools you use, and it’s not a bad shopping list, either!
“Saws, Planes, and Scorps” (Princeton Architectural Press) has a cover price of $27.50, and is available now from bookstores.
People of Earth: If you want to make a workbench that exceeds all your functional and aesthetic desires, I have but one recommendation: The French Oak Roubo Project III. The building session runs from Oct. 14-18 in Barnesville, Ga., in the well-equipped (vast understatement) workshop of Bo Childs.
Registration for this event opens this Friday, March 1. It costs $5,195 for the week and the materials. This is cheap.
The raw material is impossible to come by – thick, well-seasoned French oak. The benchtop will be one slab – no glue-ups. The hardware will be the Benchcrafted good stuff: the Classic Vise, a Crisscross, a Benchcrafted Planing Stop and two Crucible holdfasts.
After one week of work you will have a completed bench, and you will be done building benches for the rest of your life. Read all the details here.
Yes, it is time to sell your plasma, your platelets and that gold-nugget jewelry from your Matlock phase. The supply of this massive old oak is always in question. Every time Jameel and FJ at Benchcrafted finish one of these events, they say: That’s it. There’s no more. Somehow, Bo seems to scrounge more.
Aside from the crazy hard labor and teamwork needed to build these benches, the FORPs end up being about building bonds – as well as workbenches. It’s a mentally and physically intense week that you will never forget. And this will be my third one.
If you can scrounge the money and make the time, you won’t regret it.
I hope to see you in October. I know a great fried chicken place just down the road from Bo’s. So bring the Lipitor.