Oak Bench

This was my first attempt at joinery as opposed to rough carpentry that I’d done before.

When I retired, we moved to a small country village in Somerset, UK, and were determined to explore the ‘Levels’ (very flat areas criss-crossed by drainage ditches called ‘renes’) so we needed something in the front porch to sit on whilst we donned our walking boots – hence the need for a bench.

The joints were all done with floating tenons, as this meant that the squareness was down to the chopsaw rather than my hand sawing skills, so it all came out rather better than those on the seagrass stool that I made at school some fifty years earlier. Then I think I used massive amounts of cramping pressure when glueing up to drive the rails into the legs to make the joints look reasonable! My memory is a bit vague now, but I think I made up some jigs to enable me to drill holes in the legs and rails to rough out the mortices – I’m sure I made this bench before I purchased a mortising machine.

The supports for the seat rails were curved – to make it kinder to our bottoms – and the were brass screwed from below through counter-bored holes. The bench was finished with Danish oil, which I find very easy to use and which gave a nice look. As the bench is actually outside, although under cover, I could probably have found a better finish to use, but a re-coat every couple of years keeps it looking OK, with a slightly weathered look.

-- Don, Somerset UK, http://www.donjohnson24.co.uk