The Park Bench

My project for this week was to recondition an old park bench that I had in storage. The finished product is at the left. I bought the metal components for the bench at auction last year and they have been laying in the garage since. I didn’t pay much for them; it seems that no one else wanted them. I thought it would not take much to bolt some 2X4s across for the seat and to make a wood frame for the back.

Well, it turned out to be much more work than I anticipated. That seems to happen to me a lot. I found that readily available dimensional lumber does not fit in the cast groves of the bench sides so I had to rip 2X4s to fit. That takes a lot of time and it makes for a lot of sawdust. In addition the bench seat is curved so I ended up using my block plane to shape the wood a bit. The metal parts were rusted so I had to clean, prime and paint them. It just turned out to be more than I wanted to do. But it came out OK.

I don’t know why I get myself into these projects. They usually consume more resources (time, money, and energy) than if I just went and bought a finished product. Well, I guess actually I do know why. I like to work with my hands. I need always to be making something, or repairing something or repurposing something. Just buying a finished product seems so benign. As Monk would say, “It’s a blessing… and a curse.” Now, I need to decide where put this thing. It’s very heavy.

When I am not fixing or repurposing something you will usually find me in my little studio making adornments for sale in Sirocco’s Trading Post. Stop in to the trading post and take a look around.