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Rustic Entry Bench

comments (3) January 17th, 2011 in Reader's Gallery

Senomozi, member

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This is a rustic entry bench I built for my Dad’s 68th birthday. It fits nicely with the style of his home. It is made from a single slab of birch that had been air drying since 1968. The insects got to it during this time so there are a lot of worm holes in it. The legs are assembled to the top using wedged angled through tenons. They are angled by 6 degrees to add stability and are actually tapered (12” at the base, 10” at the top) but in order to keep the live edge I ripped them in halves, put a taper on the inside edge and re-glued the halves together. I sort of helped mother nature ;-) 48” long x 14” deep x 18” high. Finished with polymerized tung oil.

I actually got 16 slabs like this (~10’ long) so I know I will be making more of these benches. Hence I invested a fair amount of time building different jigs to help with various aspects of the building process: a cradle with a long router base to flatten the top, a jig similar to the Leigh FMT to shape the angled tenons using a router, a cross-cut table saw sled with a six degree bed angle and a few others. Working with live edge components is different because there are no straight edges to use as a reference for the milling operations.

Design or Plan used: My own design - Senomozi Furniture and Cabinetmaker

posted in: Reader's Gallery, bench, rustic, birch, through tenons, Senomozi, Gatineau, Ottawa

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Comments (3)

signmaker writes: I should try a project like this for the mud-room in my log home. a very nice job. Do you think using spar varnish mixed 50/50 with mineral spirits, then 75/25, and finally straight spar varnish would be any better. It seems to work well on the furniture I've made. Just a thought. Would appreciate any feedback. Thanks.
Posted: 11:06 pm on October 22nd

latheman writes: I love live edges on furniture! Great job and beautiful work!
Posted: 6:25 pm on January 17th