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Shaker bench, cherry

comments (3) April 25th, 2009 in The Gallery     
Chuck_Griffith Charles Griffith, member
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Joinery detail
Photo: Self
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I made four of these benches for our town's historical museum. They couldn't be simpler to look at, but their joinery presented a challenge. The legs and trestle are joined by interlocking cutouts, with the tops of the legs dovetailed to slide in slots running across the full width of the seat. The distance between the trestle cutouts had to align exactly with the distance between the dovetail slots. Otherwise, even the tiniest error would have caused the legs to bind in the slots and never slide through.


Design or Plan used: Based on traditional Shaker
posted in: The Gallery, dovetails, cherry, shaker, bench, oil, varnish
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Comments (3)

WilliamRoss WilliamRoss writes: In 1967 my father had adopted a very similar design (single sided sliding dovetail) to a low sofa table with magazine rack, and then to a small stool which is virtually identical to your design. Unglued, they could be "kitted" and easily assembled, or even knocked down flat. He made 65 for my boy scout troop in Boxford, Mass. I thought about that when making 11 birdhouses for my daughter's Junior troop. I don't know how he was able to do such a huge project. We still have both the stool and table. I'm sure he gained inspiration from a colonial or shaker design.
Posted: 11:43 am on November 19th

Chuck_Griffith Chuck_Griffith writes: Hi sloughin,

The alignment thing was a challenge that I wanted to see if I could handle, so I made a test bench out of pine before making the four cherry ones. The pine bench came out fine, so after having it around my workshop for about a year, I milk painted it a funky blue, then sold it at a craft fair for about $200. Some tests work out better than others. This was one that I liked a lot.

Best regards,
Chuck
Posted: 2:54 pm on July 17th

sloughin sloughin writes: The Hancock Shaker Bench (cf. John G. Shea's book, Making Authentic Shaker Furniture) is quite similar to your design but uses four smaller braces rather than a single trestle brace. This would have eliminated the fussy alignment issue. Your sliding dovetails are a nice improvement to the original design. Very nice piece!
Posted: 2:30 pm on July 8th

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