Let's get this blog started "ROUBO" style

Let's start this blog with one of my 3 biggest fans my son Charles Xavier Haniquet.  Get em started early or they will wind up like me.............chasing my tail.

 This blog is starting off on the right foot, for me that is.  It is going to go backwards for this first series of postings.  This is the end result of my first real woodworking adventure.  It is my split top Roubo workbench.  Species of wood are soft maple, walnut and samania.  All hardware is Bench crafted and this was built with the help of plans provided by Marc Spagnuolo of The Wood Whisperer Guild, and the discussion forums at woodtalkonlline.com.

 The condor tail on the end cap here makes up my daughters initial (E=Eva) and was based off of the Jameel Abraham method as outlined in Pop Woodworking.  The contrasting woods (walnut and Maple) really made this "E" stand out and I am very happy with it.

I only felt it be appropriate to incorporate an end cap with my sons initial (C=Charles).   I made it a reversed, what I call, whale tail.  I then   inlaid a small strip of walnut to outline the back of the "C".  This joint used the same methods as the condor tails.

  Next it was time to pay homage to the woman that gave birth to those 2 children, my wife.  My wife is a bit of an exotic mix, ethnically.  She is half Persian and half Roman.  So to honor my exotic beauty I picked out a nice piece of samania, of which is a south American hardwood that is not harvested very often.  I happen to have a customer that owns a banana plantation that took down one of these trees, and they were kind enough to give me a couple of pieces.  The sliding dead man/woman is made in the same dimensions of my wife scaled down.  It has beautiful grain flow, but does tear out horribly.  Up top you see my Moxon vise for all of my casework holding capabilities.

Here we are at the leg vise.  All of the bench crafted hardware was baked with five coats of flax seed oil.  Then lightly sanded with a 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper to give it a patina.

Roller brackets made of walnut.  Below is another photo of the bench from the tail vise end.  I have to say this has been an adventure.  The amount of skills I learned in this build is not something I can put into words easily.  This bench is awesome and is a pleasure to work on.  Not that I have done a ton of work on it, but the little I have done has been a quantum leap from my bench that I used to build this project.  The top gives positive feedback when chiseling, sawing and planing.  This monster does not budge.  All of your force is channeled to the workpiece and not to bounceback and movement like racking and vibration.

In conclusion to this first post I would like to thank my wife and children for support and understanding of my absence during this project.  I would like to thank Marc Spagnuolo of The Wood Whisperer for the quick responses to questions and a user friendly guild for the begining woodworker.  Not to mention, his quirky sense of humor of which can be rather entertaining.

Not that I am any sort of expert, but if anyone has any questions regarding this build, I would be happy to give my take on it.  I will also be posting all different house building strategies.  I cannot promise I will be as diligent as a professional blogger, but I will do my best to respond in a timely manner.  This is not what I do for a living and house building is.  So, I will do my best to get back to any questions asap.  Thank you for checking us out.  Til next time.    KAISER OUT!!!subtri@yahoo.com