Rustic bench

Not everything I make is portable, and not all of it could be described in any way as fine carpentry :)

Right across from my lathe, you may have seen a trio of small oak trees (just above the Yew bowl in the picture below). I planted them 20 years ago, and did not expect all three to survive. Now I shall make room for one to grow into a mighty oak, and utilise the other two stumps as supports for a rustic bench. It will be a nice place to sit on summer evenings.

Sadly, two of the trees must be 'thinned out'. Lots of nice green oak for the lathe, and for making rough-hewn stool legs.

I found an old railway sleeper lying around (as you do) and thought it would make a good seat.

The sleeper was bolted firmly to the oak stumps and all was good. Then SWMBO said "it needs a backrest".

"Here's a chance to use some orphans" I thought, so I looked out a couple of lovely square tapered legs from a table recently rescued.

A bit of crafty shaping and they make pretty good backrest supports.

I remembered an old Parana pine bookcase I dismantled a while back, and thought that two of the shelves might make a good backrest, if I joined them together end to end.

And the bench is done. All I need to do now is to darken the light bits of wood to make it all blend in, and give it all a coat of wax.

Oh, and I didn't like the big ugly holes where the bolts fixed the seat down. I found a couple of old table legs with a tapered round section... hammered them in, and sawed off level. Voila!

That looks better. Once it has all weathered in, it will all be a nice uniform greyish colour.