Roubo'ish bench
- Thread starter DynaGlide
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DynaGlide
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This will be the hackery edition of the thread. Typically the condor tails are cut on a bandsaw. Problem is I don't own one. So I stood the board up on end and went to town with a crosscut saw on a ladder:
To get that waste out between the tails you'd normally use a fret saw. I don't own a fret saw. But I do own a drill press and a Dewalt special edition dovetail saw:
I'm pleased with how everything turned out. There's some slight tearout at the far left of the shoulder line on that last picture. I'll find a way to fill that once it's joined to the end cap. Not bad for my first dovetails.
Matt
To get that waste out between the tails you'd normally use a fret saw. I don't own a fret saw. But I do own a drill press and a Dewalt special edition dovetail saw:
I'm pleased with how everything turned out. There's some slight tearout at the far left of the shoulder line on that last picture. I'll find a way to fill that once it's joined to the end cap. Not bad for my first dovetails.
Matt
DynaGlide
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Pretty good progress over the weekend working around kids and household obligations. It's not the picture perfect dovetail joint you see from people who do this sort of thing on the regular (looking at you Frank Strazza) but for my first go of it I'm really pleased. I took my sweet time finessing the fit of the tails to the pins on the end cap such that it is nice and snug, not loose, not so tight that I have to pound it in. I can get it seated 90% just by pressing down on it with my upper body weight and driving it home with a few light taps of a rubber hammer.
I didn't invent this idea of doing the pins. It's from Jameel Abraham (of Benchcrafted). He wrote up an article about a decade ago in Popular Woodworking detailing it. It's also featured on TWW build video. Once you have your tails square and are happy with everything you transfer the knife lines to the pin board and very, very carefully chisel and rout out the first 1/4" so you can rout the remaining depth with a pattern bit and a router. I hogged out the majority of the waste with my 1400 and a guide bushing and a 1/2" spiral upcut and proceeded to do the final passes with my little dewalt cordless trim router with the pattern bit. After that was done I had to do some investigating with a pencil to find what was holding it up. Just mark up the tail sides all over and look for rub marks and address the proud areas of the pins with a sharp chisel.
End cap trimmed proud so I can plane it flush after glue up:
I scribed the tails directly to the walnut endcap, then placed tape away from the knife lines and found them again with my fingernail. Reason for this is the first 1/4" gets routed out free hand close to the lines before the chisel. Having the tape was a great visual indicator of when I was getting close enough to stop.
There's about a 1mm gap at the top of the bench between that tail board and the end cap where my knife line didn't meet up perfectly when I wrapped it around. I've already worked out how I'll cut a piece off on the table saw to glue in there after I finish flattening the bench. Otherwise very happy with everything so far. The tails were cut entirely by hand and are my first dovetails of any kind.
Matt
I didn't invent this idea of doing the pins. It's from Jameel Abraham (of Benchcrafted). He wrote up an article about a decade ago in Popular Woodworking detailing it. It's also featured on TWW build video. Once you have your tails square and are happy with everything you transfer the knife lines to the pin board and very, very carefully chisel and rout out the first 1/4" so you can rout the remaining depth with a pattern bit and a router. I hogged out the majority of the waste with my 1400 and a guide bushing and a 1/2" spiral upcut and proceeded to do the final passes with my little dewalt cordless trim router with the pattern bit. After that was done I had to do some investigating with a pencil to find what was holding it up. Just mark up the tail sides all over and look for rub marks and address the proud areas of the pins with a sharp chisel.
End cap trimmed proud so I can plane it flush after glue up:
I scribed the tails directly to the walnut endcap, then placed tape away from the knife lines and found them again with my fingernail. Reason for this is the first 1/4" gets routed out free hand close to the lines before the chisel. Having the tape was a great visual indicator of when I was getting close enough to stop.
There's about a 1mm gap at the top of the bench between that tail board and the end cap where my knife line didn't meet up perfectly when I wrapped it around. I've already worked out how I'll cut a piece off on the table saw to glue in there after I finish flattening the bench. Otherwise very happy with everything so far. The tails were cut entirely by hand and are my first dovetails of any kind.
Matt
Sparktrician
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Very nice job, Matt!!! [smile]
hdv
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You said these were your first dovetails of any kind. Well, let me assure you that many woodworkers would be envious to have such nice dovetails as a first! [drooling] Just like Richard/RMW says, after a while you won't notice such small defects anymore. And other people will most likely not notice at all. Well done! [thumbs up]
DynaGlide
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Richard/RMW said:
hdv said:
Thank you guys. I aim for perfect and if I fall a little short that's okay as long as it doesn't affect anything structural/functional. I'm cruising now and can't wait to get the tail vise finished up so I can play around with it:
I'm in a chat with 3 other guys building these or variations of it and we all agreed if we had to do another it wouldn't take nearly as long now that we've worked out how to do some of these tricky things involved in the build.
Thanks for following along.
Matt
Michael Kellough
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That end cut you did is a great test of how well you assembled the blank (and your cutting skills).
Looks like you get an A+
Looks like you get an A+
DynaGlide
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I mocked up a prototype dog based on the plans included with the STR build. Fit is nice so I used it to create a template so I can batch out the rest with a flush trim bit. I'm tying up loose ends like the dogs and the bottom shelf before I move on to attaching the tops.
Matt
DynaGlide
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rvieceli said:
Thanks Ron.
Here's my production setup in full swing. Taper jig to remove as much of the waste as I could before routing:
Double sided turners tape to hold it in place:
Vac sys to hold the template since I'm lacking a router table at the moment:
Each dog is oversized in thickness and planed to fit each hole:
Kind of a fun process. I have to make the rest of the springs and attach them to the dogs and make a custom dog for the sliding block. It's slightly different in size since I made a separate template to route that dog block versus the others. I may just do it by hand.
Matt
DynaGlide
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Glad that milestone is done. I'll let your imagination run free on how I was able to lift that base onto the tops by myself. I've stubbornly done everything up until now solo. I still have a few things left to do like rout for the sliding deadman, make the shelves for the base, shape the leg vise chop, flatten the tops and probably some other things I'm forgetting. I wasn't planning on being this far along so maybe early November to have it 100% done. The tops are surprisingly flat so that is a relief.
Matt
