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Friday, January 22, 2010

First Split-Top Roubos



Last week Kelly and several die-hard alumni spent several days building 6 old-school workbenches at Kelly Mehler's School of Woodworking. Kelly was one of the first to snatch up our Split-Top Roubo plans along with vises back in late November. We delivered his vises just in the nick of time, literally the day the class got rolling. Whew! Kelly dropped me a line earlier this week raving about the success of the project.

In only 9 days Kelly and his crew built six Holtzapffel style benches and two Split-top Roubo benches, using several Benchcrafted vises. These two benches are the first Split-top Roubo's to be built using the plans. Thanks to Kelly and his crew for choosing Benchcrafted vises and plans to outfit the school. We're very excited to have our vises in use at such an excellent school as Kelly's, and we wholly support educational woodworking facilities like Kelly's.

If you're thinking that this is the year you're going to finally build yourself a real honest-to-goodness serious bench, get some inspiration and take a look at a slideshow of the bench building party here.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Ripping on Roubo



A few weeks ago we blogged about Jim Tolpin's new Split-Top Roubo. Since we released the plans for this bench we're getting some good response and woodworkers around the country are starting to build their own Split-Top Roubos.

Update on Vises: For those waiting for their vises to arrive, we've just completed a large batch of vises and will be shipping some of these this week. The Holiday season always means delays, and we thank everyone who ordered for their patience.

Back to ripping on Roubo. Jim Tolpin has taken to using his Split-Top Roubo for ripping boards. He jumps up on the bench, holds the work with his Gramercy Holdfasts, and uses the open slot to rip boards. Jim reports:

" You know, I thought at first this was just a gimmick...but other than having to hop up on the bench, its by far the easiest, safest, most hassle-free way I've found so far for ripping large boards...and I do have a massive, classic saw bench at 20-in height that I usually use. I wonder if I'll use it as much now."