Dining room bench build – day two
I normally work from a plan on most of my projects, but these benches are pretty simple. I have built about a dozen of them. They consist of a bench seat, a couple of support rails, and some legs. The legs are just boards with a “V” cut in the bottom and notches in the top to receive the rails. They go together quickly. Once everything is cut, pocket hole screws and glue are used to assemble them.
Laying out the wood
For each bench, I will need to join the wood together to make a seat that is about 12″ deep and 6′ long. The legs will be closer to 10″ deep so there is a small overhang. I start by laying out which pieces will go together. The wood I picked is about 5-3/8″ wide so I am going to rip down four of them to be about 4″ wide for the rails and I will take the 1-1/2″ strip that is left over and join it between two wider boards to get my seats to around 12″.
Cutting the 6′ long boards
Since some of my boards are close to 8′ long, I cut them down to about 6′-3″. They will be cut to 6′ after planing, that way if I snipe the ends, I can cut it off.
Ripping the boards down to size
Cleaning up the edges
Since my jointer is in need of some new blades, I am cleaning the edges on the table saw. I recently put on a new Freud anti-vibe blade, so it leaves a nice smooth surface for glueing.
Glueing up the long boards
Once the long boards are cut to size, I get the first bench glued up. It takes quite a few clamps to ensure a good tight bond, so I only have enough to do one of the big boards at a time.
Clamping up the first bench seat
I will let that sit for about an hour before I steal the clamps for the next one. I finish cutting down the boards for the legs while I am waiting.
Cutting the boards for the legs
I have a few clamps and a small work surface left, so I glue up a couple of the legs.
Glueing up the leg boards
After my hour is up, I pull the clamps off the first batch and glue up the rest. I will let the glue cure over night and start planing everything down tomorrow.
Clamping up the rest
Midnight Woodworking 