• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

reclaimed mahogany entrance hall bench

mickthetree

New Shoots
Joined
Sep 30, 2014
Messages
51
Reaction score
1
Location
Pitstone
I was invited to take this mahogany out of a skip some years back and it has been sat around waiting for the right project ever since.

These were the frames of four internal doors from a school. There we another 12 doors but this is all I could fit in my car at the time. I had planned to go back for the rest but hit a rediculous pot hole on the way home and never made it.

The science room work benches had been burnt the week before.

Anyway...

Here it is before
15593919488_fd6515f13f_z.jpg


and planned up
15593514039_d7309c2be0_z.jpg


It doesnt really show how beautiful the wood underneath is. I'll try and take some better shots this weekend.

90mm wide, 40mm thick. The bench will be slatted with 10mm spaces between, 1150mm wide and 490mm deep in an alcove in our entrance hall.

I bandsawed a shorter piece in half then thicknessed it to make some tenons which will be used to keep the alignment of each slat and as 10mm spacers. I am going to make up a jig and rout 10mm deep mortice in each piece then make the tenons 30mm long.

Tenon stock
15779342535_68e9aa4957_z.jpg


There are a couple of brass screws that have reared their not so ugly heads when planning but they dont seem to have affected the blades. Some carefully positioning means you wont see any holes once assembled. Only beautiful new mahogany that was destined for the skip.

I plan on putting a small roundover on all of the edges that will show.

It will be resting across at each end screwed to the wall, trimmed at 45 degrees and painted the same colour so hopefully they wont show.

I have also planned up another piece for a coat rack which will be going on the wall behind. We spotted some antique double coat hooks which I'm hoping will still be in the shop on Saturday.

I also got some massive lumps of cast brass from the doors which I have tucked away somewhere (goodness knows where!)

More to follow...
 
I've still got a small amount of Iroko and beech from the Corby science table recycling from years back on UKW.
Some how making stuff from reclaimed timber is so much more satisfying not only due to low cost but all the devious steps needed to hid blemishes from the original application.

Looking forward to the next instalment!

Bob
 
Change of plan!

I'm glad I planed up the extra length. I'm now going to add a rail to each end. I can then scribe each end in as the walls are slightly narrower at the back than front.

I'm going to create tenons on each rail which will fit into a mating groove on the two end rails.

Should look something like this:
15791151642_c7f1244766_z.jpg


It also means the supports on the wall will be less likely to be seen.

a bit more grain:
15604264428_f3bd22932a_z.jpg


I plan on rounding the front two corners and putting a small roundover on all of the rails.
 
Rather than cut seperate mortices for each tenon I routed a stopped groove down the end rails and cleaned up with some chisels. This wood is lovely to work with hand tools. I had to take a swipe or two with my clifton plane. Hard not to take a few extra swipes it behaves so well :lol:

15619427829_7d0aa94601_z.jpg


Marked where to cut the tenons
15620119737_c015b50c2d_z.jpg


Cut the tenons on my rutlands tenon jig. Works like a charm.
15806834262_93710985a8_z.jpg


I aim for a tight push fit then trim to perfect with a shoulder plane. Mainly because I love using it.
I trimmed the front tenons with a hand saw to fit inside the stopped groove.

8 swipes on each of the long rail top corners with the block plane
15806838012_be4595f301_z.jpg


Dry fit before glue up
15620417990_28bbe37578_z.jpg


I decided to make it a bit deeper in the alcove so cut 8 x 15mm spacers

I put a dab of glue in the middle of each tenon only, to hold them in place but allow for expansion / contraction.

All glued up and ready to cut to fit. Matches well with the parquet I installed recently. I have a plan for install to give a really tight fit :wink:
15185520314_9be18260e8_z.jpg


I didnt use much glue at all but the tight fit meant I got some squeeze out which got on the clamps so I got some black marks on the surface. I planned to sand it anyway so hopefully this will get these out.
 
ha, I havent ever taken it off the wall actually. I need to take some measurements off it and get rid as it has some worm holes. It was left in the garage when we arrived.
 
I pinched this idea from Pinch. It works a treat!!

I cut some battens to length and scribed these to the walls. I then hot glued them together and added a reinforcing bar. I laid this on the bench and traced the outline.

15644050237_a1664eb98f_z.jpg


There was a fair amount to remove but wll with the grain so a heavy set wooden jack made short work of it

And here it is in situ:
15644378420_3619d2e6ea_z.jpg


Gave it a good sand which got rid of the lack marks from the clamps. I'll remember that for next time.

The wall battens are set back a couple of inces and you have to bend right down to see them.

My can of osmo polyx was a bit cold last night so I brought it indoors and i'll coat it tonight.

I also have a coat rack that I'm making out of the same wood which I'll install this weekend hopefully.
 
That looks really nice!

I cut some battens to length and scribed these to the walls

For give my novice stupidity, but I've heard the phrase "scribed in" several times, but I'm afraid I don't know what it means :oops:. Can anyone enlighten me?

Terry.
 
Its amazing how much more professional your work can look when well scribed in.

Such a simple technique really but one that adds huge value.

I oiled the bench with Osmo last night. I'll get the coat rack finised up and take a final shot.
 
I've just taken the time to flick from your first picture to the last, the contrast is remarkable and shows what a great job you've done. I will certainly be on the look out for skips, especially near schools from now on!

Terry.
 
Back
Top