Flattening the top of the Roubo

Flattening the top of the workbench involves:

1. Removing twist (winding sticks* and a jack plane [No. 5]).
2. Planing across grain to remove cupping/crowning across the width of the top (jack plane [No. 5]).
3. Planing with grain to flatten along the length of the top (jointer plane [No. 8]).

Pretty straight forward and took a few hours to do. Last thing was to saw the uneven ends of the top off and neaten them up with a block plane.

*I made my own winding sticks out of two dimensioned pieces of oak (about 1/2 by 1 by 24 inches). One of the sticks was stained a dark colour so the sticks had distinct contrast. This article by Larry from Wood’nBits explains the ins and outs of winding sticks quite nicely.

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