Foot Full of Fist: Maybe It's About Friggin' Time...

So, yah. Um, I built these benches like a year ago and just realized that I never posted them here on the ol' blogosphere. Boy am I silly.

I wish I had taken pictures of the huge slabs of 6/4 pine that these babies were built from. But, alas, I am a fool and failed in my documentation. Not only did I not get picture of the slabs, but I failed to document the entire building process. Showing how I did the butterfly joints would have been cool. Dang.

Only when I got to the finish work did it strike me to bust out the camera.

Sorry.

So, we begin in the middle...

Here is one of them mocked-up after completing most of the construction:

Next step was to try and get the stain right. These benches were commissioned to flank a really cool old farm table with a lot of character and natural aging. I spent a full week and tried at least 20 different mixes of stains, gels, lacquers, and shellacs until I finally felt like I had a good match. After three coats of the final stain mix, here are the benches being glued up:

The obvious question one might ask is "Why are you gluing up your benches in your family room?" Well, that's easy enough... Britt and the kids were living at Bear Lake for most of the summer and I wanted to watch a movie while I worked on them and glued them up. And since there is not a TV in the garage...

Here we go with the base coat. The red I chose is FAR too bright, even for a base coat. Lesson learned. Go with deep dark reds in the future.

Once the second coat of red dried it was time for three coats of black. After the final coat dried I started with three coats of wipe on polyurethane on the tops where most of the wear and tare would be happening. I sanded with 320 grit in-between coats. When the final coat had dried I rubbed the bottom painted section down with steel wool and hit the corners lightly with some sandpaper to let some of the red through. Then, to finish them off I topped them with three coats of stained wax.

This might be a good place to talk about the butterfly joints. These joints are just about the coolest combination of form and function out there. If you look closely at the above photo you will see a very large crack running down the middle of the bench. This crack formed while the original pieces of lumber were drying in my garage. When I first saw the crack my initial response was to grown and moan. The crack runs almost half way down! I thought for sure I was out $100-$150 in lumber and that I would have to buy a new piece. Then it hit me... I had been dying to try these joints that I had seen several times on the internet. These cool bow-tie looking pieces are made of 3/4 inch walnut I had lying around the shop. The majority of the material was removed free hand with a router and then they were finished off by hand with chisels. They are super strong and super cool and that crack will never go anywhere. I like them so much I almost wish the other piece had cracked!! ha ha.