Ash Dining Room Bench

She said we needed a new bench to match my last project, the ash dining room table. Most of the heartwood from the harvested backyard tree was by-passed when making the table but now it had to be “featured” on the bench.

For the bench top, three boards with heartwood were selected with matching grain and glued together using 6 plate joining biscuits. The aprons and leg supports (1×2s) have only traces of heartwood.
Left-over scrap slats from the table project were plenty long and there was enough water-based poly in the can for two coats on the entire bench and a third coat on the bench top. Johnson’s Paste Wax was then rubbed-out with steel wool for the non-glare finish on the top only.

-- Branlon, Board Director, South Central Indiana