Project Update: Bench Top Trimming

After conferring with Random Roger Green about how best to go about cutting the Roubo bench top to size, he made an obvious suggestion: Have Creative Woodworking NW do it. As you may recall, this is the place Owen Daly and I went to have his Port Orford cedar log sliced up. Roger tells me they have a table saw with a 22" blade, which will more than suffice to cut the 4" top to size. We settled on 22" x 84" for the final width and length.

Roger will take it for me and bring it back slim and trim. Thanks, Roger!

On an unrelated note, we recently received some new tools at Tortuga Early Instruments Worldwide Headquarters: Four small convex-bottomed finger planes and a marking knife. While it's highly unlikely I'll use the planes on the instrument (or any harpsichord), the marking knife will become an invaluable part of my building efforts. The planes are for other lutherie projects that I'll describe on another blog at another time. The marking knife is on loan from Random Rog and will be returned to him with the Chris Schwarz bench book he also loaned me (Roger is pictured in the book!).

While the top is out for trimming, I'll continue to work on the legs. The first step is to flatten the tops using a nice, little Lie-Nielsen low-angle block plane on loan from - you guessed it - Random Rog. When I'm satisfied the tops are flat, I'll begin the exacting process of cutting the tenons into them. This will test my burgeoning hand tool skills and involve a back saw, a chisel or two and my abiding patience.

Yes, the Dude abides.

UPDATE: Random Rog just sent me a photo of the trimmed bench top and I must say - it looks GREAT!

Another big thanks to Random Roger Green!

Until next time...