I was given the opportunity to refurbish a bench that my son’s
teacher savaged from the trash. I was
thinking that it was going to be a small bench and sanding out some scratches
and sharp edges. It looks like it was a
four foot long church pew. The ends were
chewed up by a dog and the seat was pretty scratched up. I was told that I could just sand it
down. However, it was solid oak and
could be a nice bench. I did not want to
just sand it out.
I had to first take it all a part. It was only screwed together so it wasn’t too
bad. The hardest part was taking out the
dowel plugs. Once it was taken apart the
parts that I could use were sanded down. I knew that I needed to replace the
seat and the two sides. Seat was
easy. The sides would need some template
work. That proved to be a little challenging
because the edges were chewed up by dogs.
I ended up using edge band to build up the edge and then making a
template out of plywood. 
I am not that experienced using a template and a
router. I had the bit but I still
managed to mess it up pretty badly. Here
were my two big take a ways from the mistakes:
First is that quick grips do not provide enough clamping
power to hold a template in place. The
template moved and I screwed up the top portion of the bench.
Second is that I should have cut the waste closer to the
line. As the router went from end grain
to edge grain it took chunks of material with it.
This is how I fixed it.
I had to cut off the portions that were damaged and put on new
pieces. This time I cut closer to the
line and added a relief cuts. I then
used a few more hand screw clamps to secure the template. It worked much better.
This was going into a classroom so I wanted to put a lid
stay on it so that it would not smash fingers.
I bought a set that was rated for 40 lbs. I should have looked at the install for those
before staining. I underestimated the
space I needed. I had to add a spacer
block to make it work.
Staining and assembly went well. I used a minwax stain and
let it dry for a week. The top coat is shellac. When I was finishing it, there were a couple
of people interested. My wife has also
expressed interest in one.
Staining and assembly went well. I used a minwax stain and
let it dry for a week. The top coat is shellac. When I was finishing it, there were a couple
of people interested. My wife has also
expressed interest in one.
