Build a Bench for the Library

Join four experienced woodworkers as you and up to three other students build a bench modeled after one featured on the cover of Fine Woodworking. The author described his design as "a blending of Asian aesthetics and traditional Tudor style." A curved top rail and other features evoke Buddhist temple gates in Japan. The beefy straight legs and angled back legs come from Tudor designs.

The library bench will have a few tweaks, including a longer length to seat three people rather than two, and Domino loose-tenon joinery rather than hand-cut mortise and tenon joints. The wood is different, too: sapele, a type of African mahogany, rather than teak.

You'll learn how to take a furniture-building project from a stack of wood to a finished piece, including how to:

• Decide what pieces to get from each board in a stack of rough-cut lumber.
• Mill the wood to get the precise parts you need.
• Cut and smooth the curved pieces, angle the back slats, and use the Domino tool.
• Ease corners and prepare pieces for finish.
• Dry fit (along with why), make adjustments, and glue the parts together in a logical order.

If you register before the wood is purchased (probably in late December), you'll be invited to go on the shopping trip to Edensaw in  Port Townsend. This is an opportunity to see how to buy wood by sorting through a pallet load of boards brought out from the company's warehouse, rather than from the more limited selection in its retail store.

Because this is a community service project as well as a class, there is no materials fee and the student fee is lower than usual for an eight-session class.

Prerequisites

Class Policies

Instructors or Guides