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We glued up the benchtop for this Old-style Roubo bench today. Yeah, it looks ratty in the photo above, but the seam is tight. I even put in a little spring joint in the center of the joint , I was surprised I could close up the gap with just one of the parallel-jaw clamps.
In other words, we really didn’t need many clamps.
But we did need extra glue. I started troweling liquid hide glue on the two edges when my glue bottle made a sound akin to that of a whoopee cushion after a big Mexican meal. Yup, my glue bottle had run dry.
Megan Fitzpatrick scurried over to the sink to heat up another bottle of liquid hide, which was still in “gelatinous dog turd” form. Those of you who use the stuff know what I’m describing here.
Then Glen Huey saved the day with a big bottle of liquid hide glue that was ready to go. We covered both edges with glue, dropped one slab on top of the other. Glen manipulated the seam while I clamped.
It looks pretty good. It weighs about as much as my first car. And after I fill the cracks with black-dyed epoxy resin it will look great.
Note that I’m not using a bench to build this bench. I did all the edge jointing with the pieces on sawhorses. Tomorrow I’ll take the top out of the clamps and flatten the benchtop and underside with a fore plane. Then I’ll start building the bench base using my new benchtop.
– Christopher Schwarz
