This asian inspired bench serves as standby seating in a casual dining room and is formalized by its solid cherry construction. The floating seat is independently supported between each pair of dog-bone legs by mortise and tennoned cleats with an additional set let into the twin longitudinal stretchers.

I would have preferred using a full-width slab for the seat but cherry slabs are hard come by in South Texas. Consequently, I center joined 8/4 rough stock and contured the seating areas with a tressel mounted router jig (that also I employ to flatten slabs) by making multiple router passes- successively narrowing the range while incrementally deepening the cutting depth over each area. The resulting terraced slopes then were smoothed with a sequence of spokeshave, a mini-belt sander, and hand sanding.

The piece was finished with multiple coats of Minwax’s Antique Oil followed by buffing.

Launch Gallery