Dog Bench #3: It's finished

This is the finished product. It’s the biggest project I have done with hardwood and I learned a lot.

I finished it with two coats of Minwax gel stain and 3 coats of Minwax brush-on lacquer. The stain was really easy to work with and especially to get into all the inside corners. The brush-on lacquer I had a lot harder time with. I couldn’t get it to lay down smooth on the large plywood pieces because it seemed like it was drying too fast. I’m sure there is a way to fix that with thinner or something but I think I will stick to wipe-on finished from General Finishes.

I used the Kreg jig exclusively for the assembly as I mentioned before and it worked great. I’m pretty sure I could use this as a jack stand for my truck and it would be rock solid.

The lid closers are from Rockler and were very easy to install with little adjustment. They have a pad for calculating the weight of your lid and therefore how many you will need. That said I would need three but I only put two on and it works perfectly. I’m sure I can find something I need at Rockler when I return the other one.

The top is just a frame with half inch plywood in the center and it bowed a little bit when sat on. This was a design oversight I suppose but not too hard to fix. I started stripping the finish off in 3 strips.

I made some supports from 1×2 and clipped off the ends at a 45 degree angle. I finished the supports like the rest of the box and glued and screwed them. The top is very solid now.

Overall I have a happy customer who likes to look out the window.

And just relax.

As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

-- Kyle, Michigan