Bob Easton

Four more boards dimensioned and joined, making the aprons.  Then a lot of boring, followed by glue up and reinforcing screws.  Already, with no top boards in place, one can feel how sturdy and free of racking this bench will be.

Oh, an attractive decorative adornment results from making a mistake. Much of the bench building advice I’ve read suggests starting with 2 x 12 lumber because, they say, it is less likely to be cupped and twisted. Those folks haven’t seen the 2 x 12s that we have in our stores, wretched nasty stuff.  I used pairs of 2 x 6s hoping that when joined I could get the 11 inches needed to fill the lap already provided in the legs.  Well, that was not to be. The aprons finished out at 10 and 5/8. Should I just whack off the top of the legs to match? No, that would lower the height beyond what I wanted. Instead, some nice bits of cherry now fill the gaps, lift the aprons to proper height, and add just a bit of accent.

The 8 foot bench in Schwarz’s book has two sets of legs. My 12 foot bench will have 3 sets. While it probably isn’t needed, I decided to use the drawboring technique that Chris Schwarz describes. The technique drives dowels through the tenons, with the holes in the tenons set 1/16 inch closer to the shoulders than the holes in the mortised piece. Hammering the dowels in, draws the tenons deeply into the mortise. It really tightens up mortise and tenon joints, and has the side benefit of eliminating the need for clamps while the glue sets.

This marks the use of 4 boards of the 14 purchased. Only 10 more to dimension and put to use.