Social Distance Bench Project

[Mike Henderson]

Since we're stuck at home I decided it was a good time to do some woodwork. My wife, Judy, wanted a bench for her bathroom and it had to be a certain size and height.

A while back we lost a 75 year old (or more) avocado tree and I saved some of the wood. I put it in our attic to dry it. So I pulled some of it down and sawed it into boards. Then - just to make sure - I put it in the sun for a few days (but it was pretty dry).

The wood had a lot of defects in it. I filled the minor defects with epoxy and cut off the major defects. Came out pretty well.

Judy wanted a bench with a "sauna bench" look so that's what I designed. Here's a picture of the bench. It's not quite finished - I need to do some more finishing to it.

It's 24 inches in length, 14 inches wide, and about 20 inches high (Judy may have me cut it down a bit). There's about 1/2 inch between the slats.
Bench-001.jpg

I used my Domino quite a bit on this project. I made the mortises for the seat slats with the 10mm cutter but made tenons on the slats to fit into the Domino mortises. There's a "frame" around the seat and I used the small 4mm Dominos on the miters.

The legs splay out a small amount in the front. The ends of the legs are approximately directly under the end of the seat.
Bench-002.jpg

The legs do not splay outward when viewed from the end. They just go straight down.

The bench was constructed in two parts: The seat and the support. The seat portion just fits over the support.
Bench-003.jpg

The legs are all connected to the apron with double 8mm Dominos. It's good and solid - doesn't rock in either direction.

Here's a view into the seat portion.
Bench-004.jpg

I'll eventually use screws to attach the seat to support.

That's it. I was glad to be able to save the wood from the tree and put it to use. I was surprised at how nice the avocado wood looks.

Mike

[John K Jordan]

Since we're stuck at home I decided it was a good time to do some woodwork. My wife, Judy, wanted a bench for her bathroom and it had to be a certain size and height.
...
That's it. I was glad to be able to save the wood from the tree and put it to use. I was surprised at how nice the avocado wood looks.

That is a great looking bench. I'll be careful my Lovely Bride doesn't see your pictures or she will want one and I'd have to hire you to make it!
I do like rich color of avocado - I have some small pieces.

When I saw the title of this thread the picture in my head was a very long bench with just two places to sit - 6' apart.

JKJ

[Frederick Skelly]

Looks good Mike!

[Lee Schierer]

That's a nice looking bench. I don't believe I've ever seen anything made from avocado wood.

[Jim Becker]

Definitely a worthy project and great result!

[jim sauterer]

Great job mike like the avocado.cant grow avocado in Ohio.does it take long time to dry ?

[Mark Rainey]

Mike, that is an impressive bench that combines functionality with simple, graceful lines. And avocado wood, wow.

[Mike Henderson]

Great job mike like the avocado.cant grow avocado in Ohio.does it take long time to dry ?

I don't remember how long I had it in the attic but maybe a year. It was wet and heavy when I put it up but it seemed to dry out fairly quickly. It sure got a lot lighter

I cut it into pieces that were a size and weight that I could handle. I split it down the center to try to limit the splitting but there were still a lot of defects in the wood when it was dry. You can see places in the slats where I filled splits with epoxy.

The tree slowly failed - every year it had less and less foliage until there just wasn't much left. We cut it down to the main trunk but I couldn't get the rest done for several weeks so I suppose it dried a bit there. Then we cut the trunk down and I sawed it in half. I took the pieces to my band saw and cut them until they were roughly square, then put them in the attic. The attic gets fairly hot in the summer here so I guess that helped a lot.

Anyway, that's the history of the wood. I think it's a nice, good looking, wood in a project.

Mike

[Paul F Mills]

That looks great. In every thought about avocado wood furniture before.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Nicely done Mike! Gorgeous wood!