Church Pew

Hi, phew, the pew is finished. Here is a picture show start to finish. Enjoy.

Stripping outside on a cool morning.

Too hot outside now so moved into the shop.

Squaring up the glue edge before repairing the seat.

Square up the other mating edge too. How am I going to clamp this?

With a little patience it and quick hands it stayed together.

Ends made by laminating two 3/4 " panels face to face. 

Built the same way as the 100 year old pew ends.

This vise is great for holding the ends for shaping.

Once the stain is dry I will rout out the dados.

After routing out dados we fit the bench to the ends

Glue on the arm rests.

Feet on the bottom and 1st coat of varnish.

 That should compliment the other pew that is already on one side of the kitchen table.

Thanks for looking
Ken

Taking Care of Some Unfinished Business

  Finally back to working on the church pew. I am making new ends for the left over length of seat from the curved bench that used to be ten feet long. I had to wait for the oak boards to dry to a lower moisture content before laminating up the ends. It will be nice to get it together and out of here. The bench seat has been in here since the end of May after I stripped the old finish off of it.

Two panels face to face to make a 1 1/2 " thick end piece

Frankenvise can hold just about anything.

  I had to trim down Frankenvise as there was to much flex in the jaws above the tightening screw. I recycled these crazy screw handles from a broken shovel handle. With a couple of twists I can unscrew them from the "T" if they are in the way.

Stained with Puritan Pine and will be ready to fit together tomorrow.

  I also got a start on the dados for the bench seat to fit into the ends. Roughed them out with a skill saw and chisel. Tomorrow I'll use the router and straight bit and sneak up on the edges of the dados.

  I'll post a little montage of pictures later to show how I had imagined it would come together back in June.


Thanks for reading
Ken