Project Information
My sister in law had seen a few "live edge" benches at an arts and crafts show. I offered to build her one.
The lumber was harvested from a tree that was cut in the Atchafalaya Swamp many moons ago. Imagine a poor soul wading through muck and mosquitoes to arrive at the base of this old growth cypress tree and then attacking it with an axe for hours and hours. Finally felling the tree, it would have been limbed and then dragged or rolled into the water to be lashed to other logs in a raft to be floated to a mill. But this log sank. Maybe 80 to 150 years ago. And there it sat. In that muddy water until a guy I found on craigslist located it and retrieved it. Winching it up to the side of his skiff and then bringing it near his home in Bayou Sorrell, Louisiana so that he could drag it by tractor to his backyard mill. And even in being particularly "particular", I had no idea that the finished project would be so beautiful.
New for me?
Through mortises, biscuit joining on the stretchers, preserving roughness and character in the lumber as I milled and ripped it, danish oil, shellac, Breewax
Super fun project. I highly recommend!
The lumber was harvested from a tree that was cut in the Atchafalaya Swamp many moons ago. Imagine a poor soul wading through muck and mosquitoes to arrive at the base of this old growth cypress tree and then attacking it with an axe for hours and hours. Finally felling the tree, it would have been limbed and then dragged or rolled into the water to be lashed to other logs in a raft to be floated to a mill. But this log sank. Maybe 80 to 150 years ago. And there it sat. In that muddy water until a guy I found on craigslist located it and retrieved it. Winching it up to the side of his skiff and then bringing it near his home in Bayou Sorrell, Louisiana so that he could drag it by tractor to his backyard mill. And even in being particularly "particular", I had no idea that the finished project would be so beautiful.
New for me?
Through mortises, biscuit joining on the stretchers, preserving roughness and character in the lumber as I milled and ripped it, danish oil, shellac, Breewax
Super fun project. I highly recommend!