Church Pew

[jack dempsey]

Hello,
Looking for some advice on an upcoming project. I am going to build a small bench 48" to 60" inches in length to place on a covered back porch. I am anticipating something like a small version of what I would refer as an old church pew style. Since it will be painted and under roof and generally protected from the weather I plan to use poplar, 6/4 and 8/4. My plans are in the initial stage but I am looking for advice as to how create the slight concave for the bench seat. I will use the 8/4 for the bench seat and sides of the bench. Your thoughts and guidance are appreciated. Thanks, Jack

[Doug Dawson]

Hello,
Looking for some advice on an upcoming project. I am going to build a small bench 48" to 60" inches in length to place on a covered back porch. I am anticipating something like a small version of what I would refer as an old church pew style. Since it will be painted and under roof and generally protected from the weather I plan to use poplar, 6/4 and 8/4. My plans are in the initial stage but I am looking for advice as to how create the slight concave for the bench seat. I will use the 8/4 for the bench seat and sides of the bench. Your thoughts and guidance are appreciated. Thanks, JackChurch pews are intended to be as uncomfortable as possible, to induce trembling in the presence of God. So perhaps you should rethink this? :^)

[Jim Becker]

One method you can use to hog out the concavity for the seat is the same way you would do something like crown molding on the table saw. Temporary fences to guide the workpiece at an angle across the blade and many passes to get to the desired depth. Repositioning may or may not be required to get all the material desired out. From there...hand planes and abrasives to get to your final contour. The reason you can use this method is because of the length of the workpiece and the linear nature of the operation.

[Andy D Jones]

What Jim said.

FWW had a very good article on the process for cutting coves on a table saw.

The resulting cove has a circular curve equal to the radius of the blade if fed 90 degrees to the blade (broad sideways), or elliptical if fed at a smaller angle to the blade.

IIRC, the same article covered simultaneously tilting the table saw blade to create an asymmetric curve (with differing rates of curvature on opposite sides of the apex of the cove.) Useful for things such as finger catches on drawer fronts, or the sweeping, concave curve of a pew seat bottom.

I think that same article covers wasting out much of the cut with multiple passes over a dado blade, but you could also use a shaper or router table.

Alas, all such curves are concave, and the technique cannot help you with the convex curve toward the front of the seat, or towards the top of the seat back.

-- Andy - Arlington TX

[Tom Bain]

I repurposed a church pew into a eating nook/booth in our kitchen. It’s surprisingly comfortable because they built they pew with body geometry in mind. Both the seat and back have nice contours, which utilized coopering techniques to join the boards to form the slight curves. Apologies for the picture orientation.

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