Project: Black Walnut Natural Edge Bench

[Jim Becker]

You may recall the "lumber gloat" that I had not long ago when my cabinetmaker neighbor was cleaning out his shop and gifted me a bunch of material that he didn't feel he would be able to use. You know, "trash" like purple heart, mahogany, bocote and rosewood. Well, there happened to be a nice black walnut crotch slab there, too. I was curious about this dusty, dirty crotch slab actually looked like, so while I was in-between shellac applications on the tiger maple Shaker style candle stand project, I decided to run it through the drum sander a bit and see what was revealed...

bench-1.jpg

Ok...that's nice! Hmm. 'Need a bench for the kitchen for putting on shoes and boots. Hmm. Natural edge...nice! Ok, let's do it! So I kept the drum sander going for a very long time with 36 grit, making this slab "relatively" flat and workable. Switched to 80 grit for a bit to take out some of the scratching and then broke out the Rotex to complete that task. (Sorry...no pictures of all that work. I forgot in my excitement of actually working on projects IN my shop for a change)

I have a few more black walnut slabs in "inventory" from a large tree that came down on the property back in 2000, so I picked out one of those that really wasn't usable for a seat or table top and cut it down with the Festool saw on a rail to make a couple of hefty legs, paying attention to getting some nice crotch figure for them, too. One is 13 1/2" wide and the other is 10" wide. I decided to make the bench, itself, 36" wide, so I chose the start and end-points and again used the Festool saw on a guide rail to make the cuts, keeping the two ends parallel. Some additional shaping was done with the sanders.

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Since this piece would be used for seating and live on a brick floor, I wanted a stretcher between the legs for additional stiffness--a through tenon would look great, so that is what I chose to do. I did some layout on the bottom of the bench portion using the legs to determine the exact placement of this cross member to be installed 7" down from the slab. The mortises were opened up at the DP with a nice 1 1/4" Forstner bit and then completed by hand at the bench, using these great hold-downs I got from Joel at Toolsforworkingwood.com. (They really are great!) It took awhile to whack things and pare things smooth and square, but it was a good job to be doing while the USL coats were drying on the candle stand and the natural edge table I had to repair.

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In the mean time, I also roughed the tenons on the stretcher at the TS and BS and then brought it to the bench for final fitting of each end. Please note that I purposely roughed them larger since through-tenons really need to fit properly on the visible end. Paring them down at the bench with a variety of tools, including chisels, planes and, umm...sandpaper...was just the ticket. I only need to do a very little "sliver filling" once things were finally assembled. Here's the first one after fitting:

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[Jim Becker]

Then it was on to the other end, refining the tenon until it slipped very snugly into the other leg.

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Once the stretcher tenons were complete, it off to the TS to chamfer the ends.

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And then, time for a dry-fit of everything after installing some dowels between the legs and the slab. These provide both some alignment and joint-strength. Yes, I could have used a spline or a couple of lose tenons for this, but I intended to use a few hidden screws to reinforce the glue and dowel joints. A few swipes of a rag with mineral spirits once again shows that this is going to be a very pretty piece.

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The dry fit was satisfactory, so it was time to glue everything up and clamp. Note that I had to use a hefty caul on the wide end since the jaws of the clamps could not reach the bottom of the leg. Once things were clamped, I installed the countersunk and hidden screws and did some minor "repair" of the mortises using slivers of walnut to hide a few small, but noticeable gaps.

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And this is how things were at the end of the day...fully assembled and ready for a whole lot of additional sanding and then the finish. That will be BLO, shellac and on the top of the slab, some gloss USL to allow the bench to take more of a beating as it certainly will with a couple kids around.

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I'll get all that started tomorrow after mowing the grass...for about the first time in a month. (no rain until this past week...)

BTW, this is an example of a "no plans, no drawings" project. Pieces are laid out and fitted in situ and the design just evolves along the way. It's sometimes fun to work this way!

[Art Mulder]

Jim, that looks like a wonderful "surprise" project for your family. I love it when a project pops into my mind and just comes together blindingly fast like this.

I'm concered about the legs. How level is your brick floor? Are they going to sit level? Or are you going to put some little pads under the corners to lift up the large slabs of the legs?

[Corey Hallagan]

Very cool Jim! That's what you call making the best of your limited shop time. Can't wait to see it finished!

Corey

[John Michaels]

That's very nice wood. I like the through tenon alot. Nice work.

[Mike Cutler]

Nice work Jim, and thanks for the pics. I can't believe you got that all done in a day.

The walnut is pretty, be sure to post some pics pf the bench with the finish applied.

[Keith Beck]

Jim,

Awesome work! I can't wait to see the finished product. I've got a few Walnut slabs too that I've been wondering what to do with, so you've given me an idea. Unfortunately, I don't think any of mine are as thick as what you've got, so they may not work.

Keith

[Terry Hatfield]

Very cool Jim!!! I've never thought much about building a natural edge project but your bench makes me want to do one.

t

[Karl Laustrup]

Verrrrry nice looking bench it will be Jim. Looking forward to seeing it finished and how the grain pops on the legs.

Karl

[Jim Becker]

I'm concerned about the legs. How level is your brick floor? Are they going to sit level? Or are you going to put some little pads under the corners to lift up the large slabs of the legs?

There are soft pads on the four corners. If they don't provide enough "give", they will be replaced with levelers, although I'd like to avoid that if possible.

I just showed it to Dr SWMBO and she seems to like it... ...although I need to find someplace to store the ugly blue plastic step stool that currently hangs out where this bench will be living...

[lou sansone]

ahhh the king of woods... you just can't go wrong with black walnut. nice use of the lumber

lou

[Don Baer]

Thats a real great use of free wood and it looks outstanding.

[Jerry Olexa]

Nice work, Jim! Like the wood and love that through tenon...Looks good!!

[Ian Barley]

There are soft pads on the four corners. If they don't provide enough "give", they will be replaced with levelers, although I'd like to avoid that if possible....

Very nice Jim - I am a big fan of "no plans" working. If the thing rocks about a bit don't forget that a tripod is more stable on uneven surface than a quadpod (??). If you end up putting anything on the bottom then consider having two contact points on one leg and just one on the other leg. That way it cannot wobble.

(p.s congrats on squeezing some shop time!!)

[Jim Becker]

Ian, the majority of things I build for the brick floor are tripod based. That is an option here, but for this particular piece, it would be a last resort as it does affect stability of this particular shape and use.