Refurbishing a Bench

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.