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Monks bench or Settle

This is a project that evolved as I progressed through the stages of building it.   

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The original concept came when we saw an antique monks bench, that looked something like this:

18C_Oak_Settle.JPG

And then someone gave me an entire kitchen-full of solid oak cupboard door-fronts.

os1.jpg

There followed many hours of scraping, to remove all the modern varnish and stain.   The curved mouldings were particularly challenging.   This took me several weeks, and seemed never-ending.

os2.jpg
ospanels.jpg

Until eventually I had a big pile of nice clean oak panels.

osbits.jpg

I chose three doors to make the front of the settle, and joined them together using tongue and groove joints.

osjoint.jpg
osfront.jpg

And then formed them into a box with other panels and some sturdy oak corner-posts. The top from an old coffee table provided a good solid bottom for the box.

settlemake.jpg
osinside.jpg

My wife decided she didn't want arms on it, which meant it was impractical to have a high backrest, so I found some nicely moulded oak edging and made it into a low upstand. 

osmoulding.jpg
osupstand.jpg

I had a very old elm kitchen tabletop waiting for a purpose, and one half of it made a very good lid.   It even had some nice curved moulding around three edges, that worked very well with the design.

os1a.jpg
osfittop.jpg

And now the final shape is emerging.

osf1.jpg

Some wrought-iron hinges and a few coats of polish, and voila!

osfdin.jpg
settlefin.jpg

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