The Balcony Bench (Pt.5)

I am back to everyday life.

After two relaxing weeks the daily stress is back.

Before it will take me completely I'll try to complete the bench project.

And then getting space for a new project which is just around the corner.

Last time I reported about the back rest of the bench. All m&t joints done, the next step was to round over all the back slats.

Rounding over the edges

A good deal of work. I have used my block plane to round over all edges so that I got a roundish profile.

After a while of listening to some music, having a few sips of tea and some planing work all 15 slats were done.

All edges done

Then I was running wild and decided to spread this design element over the whole bench. That said I have started to round over the top edges of the top back rail. Luckily I couldn't do more the first time. Because during the following evening and night it came to my mind that it wasn't the best idea. First of all I have got some intersecting parts. So it make more sense to have a nice transition, which only can be done having the parts assembled. Secondly doubts were spreading. Wouldn't it be too roundish?

So it came that I decided to round over the outside edges but to leave the inside edges straight.

To do the round over at the top rail was a bit tricky because of the crown of the rail. I've done the straight parts with the block plane, switched then to the bull-nose plane and finally used a chisel close to the edges.

Round over by chisel

...and from the other side

Having still some shaping to do I leave it as minor tasks. Whenever I find some time I'm doing some shaping.

The last constructional thing to be done was a center rail and a bracket for the lower back rail to fix it somewhere.

I prepared the center rail and connected it with a m&t joint to the front rail. The rear part should be a double tenon connected to the bracket.

First step was to layout a double tenon.

Double tenon layout

Cutting it....

Tenons cut

Transferring the layout to the bracket....

Transferring the lines

...and then chopping the mortises and finally laying out the shape of the bracket.

Mortises and shape layout

All that done the bracket looks like this...

The final bracket

Now the exciting moment came to check if the double tenon will fit into the the bracket. Surprisingly it fitted better than expected.

Test fit

And finally it came out like this....

Temporarily mounted

Beside of the seat slats this was the last missing constructional component.

Now I only have to do shaping of the components, glue up and finishing. Sounds not bad at all.

Stay tuned!
Stefan