new walnut bench

Today I am making a walnut bench in a new design derived from the rustic/contemporary hall tables I've made of late. I am also finishing a maple table with curly maple base. Both of these have presented some challenges related to some warp in the materials. As you can see in the photo, the walnut bench is being assembled using wedges to lock tenons. It may be overkill in terms of strength but also allows for a bit of variation that resulted from the forming of the tenons. Next time I may use my Shopsmith as a horizontal borer to make my tenons more precise than what I can do with a hand held electric drill. I don't know haw many have such wonderful opportunities to learn from experience. It is what I would wish for each man, woman and child... to learn the soft, manageable daily lessons of craftsmanship rather than those catastrophic things that happen when we get completely out of touch.