I’m currently starting the process of building a ‘Petite Roubo’ work bench out of hardwood, That bench will be a version of the giant old French benches from the 18th century, scaled down to a ‘mere’ 6ft long. Before attempting that however I wanted to practice the joints and construction first, so I made this scaled down 3ft version to be used as a saw bench.

This one is made from all sorts of reclaimed odds and ends, a large off cut of 2″x8″ for the top, the legs are cut from old sash window frames and the rails are from stretchers from a broken bed. The overall final dimensions (minus vice) are 3ft long, 7-1/2″ wide and 19″ tall.

Most saw benches don’t have an end vice – probably for very good reasons (Its made it a little end heavy), but I added it because I had an old 7″ vice knocking about not doing anything so .. . hopefully it will be useful. I just need to add some wooden jaws and possibly some bench dog holes. I drew the line at adding a leg vice though, I was tempted – Its probably the leg vice above all that really makes a bench a Roubo but never mind.

It was all good practice though and went together surprisingly easily, time will tell how useful this tiny bench is, but I’m looking forward to the real, nearly full size, thing.

UPDATE: to anyone thats interested it has been pretty useful around the workshop, but it also has fallen over a lot because of the vice, its only really a problem if theres stuff on it though, a lot of the time the extra weight on one end helps, also sitting on it with work clamped in the vice works quite well, I wouldn’t recommend copying it though, its a pretty stupid item of furniture, it was however good practice for the full size bench. (oct 2013)