Todd Burch
10-21-2013, 8:58 PM
A church down south of me in Lake Jackson, Texas is remodeling their worship center. They dismantled 52 pews, removed all the screws and hardware, and stacked all the bench boards and back boards neatly into a storage unit.
The bench boards were all 15" wide (edge glued), a full 1" thick, and 174" and 106" long.
The back boards were all ~20" wide (edge glued), 3/4" thick, similar lengths, no hardware to speak of, and all had what equates to a hand rail on one edge (that part you hold on to when standing).
I opted for all the 1" material they had. Ended up with ~824 bf @ $1/bf. I thought it was a pretty good deal, seeing as they did all the hard work and helped me load it. :D
I didn't get any 3/4 material. Another guy was there and he got a few hundred board feet. I figured there is probably about 400/bf left in a few wide laminations and lots of strips that came unglued from the wider pieces due to age and handling. The pews were ~55 years old. Blond white oak. All flat - nothing curved. All flat sawn. A lot of the glued edges of the back board sections were coming apart, but all but 3 or 4 of the bench seats were holding nice and tight.
Not sure what I'll do with it yet. Might be shop counter tops, might be face frame/door/drawer front material for the house. Heck, might be attic boards in the garage for $1/bf.
No pics. Had to drive 250 miles round trip to get it.
I figure I also got, for free, about 3 packs worth of gum - stuck to the undersides of the seat boards, and a couple of vintage VISITOR tags. :rolleyes:
Todd
The bench boards were all 15" wide (edge glued), a full 1" thick, and 174" and 106" long.
The back boards were all ~20" wide (edge glued), 3/4" thick, similar lengths, no hardware to speak of, and all had what equates to a hand rail on one edge (that part you hold on to when standing).
I opted for all the 1" material they had. Ended up with ~824 bf @ $1/bf. I thought it was a pretty good deal, seeing as they did all the hard work and helped me load it. :D
I didn't get any 3/4 material. Another guy was there and he got a few hundred board feet. I figured there is probably about 400/bf left in a few wide laminations and lots of strips that came unglued from the wider pieces due to age and handling. The pews were ~55 years old. Blond white oak. All flat - nothing curved. All flat sawn. A lot of the glued edges of the back board sections were coming apart, but all but 3 or 4 of the bench seats were holding nice and tight.
Not sure what I'll do with it yet. Might be shop counter tops, might be face frame/door/drawer front material for the house. Heck, might be attic boards in the garage for $1/bf.
No pics. Had to drive 250 miles round trip to get it.
I figure I also got, for free, about 3 packs worth of gum - stuck to the undersides of the seat boards, and a couple of vintage VISITOR tags. :rolleyes:
Todd