The Splinter Report: December 19th

Welcome to The Splinter Report, where I gather the assorted interesting and amusing things I’ve seen in the woodworking world. This week we’re looking at Roubo Workbenches, wood movement, and Roubo Workbenches.

Just a quick note — the next two Splinter Reports will be greatest hits while I take a holiday break and recharge the creative batteries. We’ll return to our usual scheduled programming in January.

Tool News Quick Bites

Oliver Updates Their 6″ Joiner: Oliver Machinery announced an upgrade to their 4225 joiner. The model now features 1.5hp (up from 1hp) and a repositioned on/off switch.

Odds & Ends: Ever-Thickening Roubo Top

I went down a bit of a “rabbet” hole recently (my kids love my jokes). I was digging through the history of the Roubo Workbench as built by Christopher Schwarz, and noticed something interesting. His Roubo first shows up in Woodworking Magazine Issue 4, in 2005, featuring a 4″ thick top. In 2010, The Return of the Roubo was published, and the top has been buffed to 4-7/8″. And when the Anarchist’s Workbench came out in 2020, the top was a nice round 5″ thick. The idea behind this fattening up was to add mass, creating a more stable platform for work. All of this got me wondering, just how much weight did the Roubo gain in those 15 years?

Soft Maple and Ash have a similar weight, we’ll say 3.5lbs per board-ft. In 2005 the top was 24″ x 96″, for a total of 64 bd-ft of wood and 224lbs. In 2010 the top was only 20″ x 72″, making just under 50 bd-ft and a weight of 175 lbs. And then in 2020 the top dimensions were 22″ x 96″, for a total of 73.33 bd-ft and a weight of 265.655 lbs.

I’m not sure I learned anything with all this math, but I’m certain the workbench nerds out there appreciate it.

(As an aside, if past trends continue, Chris will release an updated version before the end of the year with a 72″ x 18″ top that’s 5-7/8″ thick. That top would weigh 189lbs.)

Cheap Crap: Home Goods Edition

Years ago I bought a wooden cutting board from TJ Maxx because it was cheap and was right in front of my face. It’s actually held up great over the years, which is a testament to wood as a material, as well as the industrial glue they used to assemble the board. It turns out there are limits to what even industrial glue can do though, as I saw on a recent trip to Home Goods for Christmas candles.

Somewhere, some designer decided that this grain pattern would look great, with zero concern for material properties or wood movement. And then several other people along the supply chain signed off on it as well. No amount of hubris can outrun wood movement, though. There was a whole rack of boards like this, in various states of disassembly, long before they even made it into a kitchen. Unfortunately, these will all end up in a dumpster, no one is going to learn, and I’ll be seeing another rack full of boards like this in six short months. The cycle of crap continues.

Out of Context Christopher Schwarz Quote

“Here is a question that has been going through my mind for more than a decade: When an 18th-century French woodworker started building a workbench, what was the moisture content of the wood?”

Video of the Week: Budget Roubo

I’ll stay on topic again for this week’s video. Canadian woodworker DRAW CLOSER studio compressed a two-month Roubo build into a nice 20-minute video. There’s no dialogue, so it’s a bit short on specifics, though if I had to guess, I think this particular top is closer to four inches thick than five.

Anything interesting I missed this week, or that you want me to highlight in a future Splinter Report? Let me know on social media or drop me an email at cknoff@aimmedia.com.