Roubo Bookstand

This is the Roubo Bookstand. Here is the Wikipedia entry for Andre Roubo.

André Jacob Roubo was a French cabinetmaker and author. The son and grandson of Master Cabinetmakers, he earned that designation in 1774 through the publication of his masterwork treatise on woodworking.
He wrote a highly influential complete treatise on woodworking that covers practically all the associated trades. This multi-volume work, L'Art du Menuisier (The Art of the Joiner), published between 1769 and 1774 by the Académie des Sciences, contains sections and illustrations on: building carpentry, furniture making, and precious woodworking (ébénisterie), carriage making, and garden woodworking.

The book stand was featured in a plate in his treatise, and is one of the many things popular in the woodworking world today. Roy Underhil spent an episode of The Woodwright's Shop showing us how to build one, and he wrote an article in an issue of Popular Woodworking about it.

I was intimidated at the thought of making this. It is a single board (3/4" pine, in this case), in which the pivot hinge is carved out, and then the board is sawn through its width, separating the leaves. If this sounds unintelligible, and I'm sure it does, then watch The Woodwright's Shop.

Take my word for it though: Don't be intimidated by it. Its not as hard as it looks or sounds. And I think it makes a wonderful gift.

I tried adding some age to this new pine. Finishing is my least favorite part of the job, well, except maybe for any sanding that needs to be done. But I'm happy with how the finish turned out. Basically, its orange shellac, a dark gel stain, and the dark Briwax.

AMDG

Whetstones

At the risk of being absolutely repetetive, I can't stress enough how important the Art of Sharpening is to woodworking with hand tools. Yes, I call it the "Art." Sharpening is, by far, the most essential skill to traditional woodworking. Saws, chisels, plane irons.....they WILL NOT work properly unless they are sharp. Furthermore, they are dangerous to use dull. At some point, hopefully, I will delve into the resources available to the woodworker for aiding him in sharpening. I, myself, am but a novice still. But I am more than happy to share my experiences.

Waterstones were my stones of choice, mostly because that's what all the magazines raved about. But as I grew deeper and deeper into traditional woodworking, phasing out my power tools and trying to simplify my life, I started realizing what a pain the waterstones were and just knew there had to be something better out there. Research lead me to consider oilstones, even though the verdict was out by many that they were slow.

Don't get me wrong. Waterstones sharpened my tools very fast and put an excellent edge on them. The maintenance and the mess were the problems. I tried many methods to contain the mess, but it was to no avail. And it seemed like the surface of the stones was always in need of refreshing or flattening.

To make a long story short, I ordered two stones from Natural Whetstone, a soft arkansas and a black.

I couldn't be happier about my choice. These whetstones (oilstones) have made all the difference. I put vegetable oil on the surface, sharpen my tool and wipe the stone. There is no mess. An added bonus is that water never touches my tool now.

As for the edge it produces....I have no scientific numbers to throw at you, and eventually I will get a strop and honing compound, but my 3/4" Stanley 750 had no problem slicing white pine end grain after coming off the black stone, a popular test for an edge tool.

AMDG

The Heat is Gone; Back in the Shop

My workshop --a spare, second floor bedroom in a house without any air conditioning-- is usually too hot during the summer days for me. Also, I spend a lot of time gardening in my backyard, as well as various exterior projects around the house.

But the days and nights have been getting cooler, and this has allowed me to get back into the shop. I've gotten back to working on my English-style workbench. No pictures or videos, yet. I plan on making another video of the process of laying out and cutting the tenons for the leg mortises. I've also gotten to a couple of long overdue projects for my current workbench's top. Which brings me to.....

Most of the current English-style benches being built are constructed of construction lumber. This is a great application for that material. But I"m concerned me the 1 1/2" thick benchtop is just too thin. I've grown fond of my 4" thick laminated Southern Yellow Pine benchtop. And rather than re-invest in a benchtop, I'm going to reuse my 4" thick SYP benchtop for my English-style workbench. A tad unorthodox, but an acceptable novelty. Don't you think?

Thanks for being patient with the blog.

AMDG

Leg Mortise Video

Forgive the poor quality; just thought I'd mess around. This is my first video, taken with a camera that has video capability on it. If I am to do more of these, I will need to invest in a real video camera.

AMDG

English Bench Build: Part 1

My current workbench is serviceable. Many years ago, I started to build a typical European workbench, with a face vise and tail vise. You can see how far I got.

The bench was built to serve my slight interest in hand tools, and my major use of power tools. As I slowly started using hand tools more and more, I found that a tail vise was not needed; so I never finished it, even though I bought the bench screw for it. I never purchased the face vise. This bench has made me use very creative clamping and holding situations. When I finally realized that hand tools were in my heart, I turned the top around so the row of dogs was on the back, and I added a big 2 3/4" square planing stop on the new left end. 

Don't get me wrong. My bench has helped me immensely, but I know that its time to upgrade.

The English bench has caught my eye. I love the simplicity; I love the wide front apron. So today I started to build it. I had some 8' Douglas Fir 4x4's. I rough cut these to length for the legs, and laid out the mortises for the rails. Pictures below.

Cut to a rough, oversized length: 28 1/2"

Measuring from what will be the bottom of the leg (that scribed line at the right), the mortise for the lower rail is 5" up. The length of the mortise is 3". It will receive a 4x4 rail with a 1" tenon.



Measuring from the finished top line, the mortise for the top rail begins 1/4" down, and, similarly, is 3" long.

I will keep posting the progress on building this bench. Admittedly, I am quite nervous that the thinner, 2 1/4" top (compared to my current 4" top) will dissappoint me. We'll see. 

AMDG 

Shop Fixtures

The shop has received a lot of attention. It was very cramped, non-efficient, and focused on using power tools. That had to change; it had to be simplified. Here are a couple of ways I accomplished that.

AMDG

Altar Card Frames

I can't believe its been almost a year since my last post. Time flies! I've been very busy with work, housework, a new baby (Anne Catherine, 1/7/2011), etc.

Shop time has been spent on honing skills, cleaning up and organizing. For a while I had removed all power tools from my shop, but with this project, I re-setup the tablesaw to rip some narrow boards. I still have much to learn with hand tools.

This project was for a Roman Catholic priest friend of mine. He is celebrating Holy Mass for the feast of St. Joseph on March 19. He has a devotion to St. Joseph. He purchased the altar cards, but had no frames for them.

If you have any questions about what these are used for, please feel free to ask me.

AMDG