350 pounds of hard maple. Benchcrafted plans, Benchcrafted hardware, my own pop-up dogs. The bench I waited 13 years to build.
Thirteen years of wanting it. Four weeks of building it. The math of mastery is rarely linear.
The top is 8/4 hard maple laminated on edge until it's four inches thick and 87 inches long. The legs are 3-1/2 inches by 5-3/8. The whole thing weighs over 350 pounds. It does not move while you work.
The vises are Benchcrafted: a Glide leg vise with the Crisscross mechanism for the front, and a Tail Vise for the end. The pop-up dogs are mine — spring-loaded, flush when you don't want them, ready when you do. There's a Moxon coming.
I wanted a proper Roubo for as long as I'd been working wood. Thirteen years. Early on it was out of reach — the hardware alone was more than my whole shop budget, and even if I'd had the money I wasn't sure I had the skill to do the build justice. Later, once those two things weren't true anymore, I just never had the time. The client work always came first.
So I finally gave myself four weeks.
I built it to Benchcrafted's plans with a few minor mods. Hard maple, 8/4 stock laminated on edge until the top was four inches thick. Glide leg vise with the Crisscross mechanism up front. Tail Vise on the end. Moxon coming next. I made my own pop-up dogs because I wanted that one piece to be entirely mine.
"This was the most complicated thing I've ever built. It leveled me up."
Every operation on this bench taught me something. The lamination glue-ups were brutal — you only get one shot with that much surface area and that much weight. The drawbored mortise and tenon joinery at the base. Drilling the holdfast holes square through four inches of solid maple. Fitting the gap stop so it rises a clean half-inch on its ramps.
My youngest has already called it. He says it's his when I'm done with it. So one day this bench leaves my shop and goes to his. Until then, every piece in Studio 5326 starts here.
Every commission in the Studio 5326 Folio is built on this bench. If you'd like a piece that begins here, let's talk.