A bench made from a large cable spool.

Our cable spool duck house (https://www.instructables.com/id/Cable-Spool-Duck-House/) was so much fun that I decided to keep going and build another "tier," which would serve as storage for duck-related items, as well as a bench where one might sit and read aloud to ducks, were one so inclined.

Step 1: Materials

See my Cable Spool Duck House 'ible for materials and tools.

Two of these half-round bench/cabinets can be made with one four-foot cable spool (if you throw in a few additional pieces of wood). Some hinges and a latch and/or handle are required if one expects the door to behave in a door-like fashion.

Galvanized wood screws holed it all together.

Step 2: Bisecting the Circle

It's easy to make two half-circles out of a circle, unless the circle has a big metal thingy in the middle of it.

Cable spools have heavy-duty metal rings at their hub. These are placed there using advanced space-bending technologies which defy the laws of physics. That might not be entirely correct, I'm just making assumptions because I can't figure out how the heck the magical spool-building elves do it.

In any case, since I wasn't able to teleport the hub out, I ended up cutting right up to the hub using a circular saw. And a hand saw. And a screwdriver and a hammer.

UPDATE:
Instructables user Hoopajoo (who may or may not be a spool-building elf) provided the following tip via the comments on this 'ible:
"The easiest way I've found to dispense with the hub bushing is to place a mechanic's socket of equal size to the bushing and, using a wooden or rubber mallet, drive it through. It can be easily recovered once you cut and remove the top. If such a socket is not available, you can substitute a wooden dowel or board of equal dimensions and use a metal mallet in lieu of the wooden / rubber one."

Step 3: Cut the Slats

The cable spool has fourteen slats that make the "barrel" around which the cable is wrapped. If you grab half of those slats and hack them in half, you end up with fourteen little slats.

Fourteen slats just happen to fit perfectly around the curved perimeter of the half-circle: a cosmically satisfying geometrical phenomenon.

Step 4: Mount the Slats, Add the Door

I drilled pilot holes and used galvanized wood screws to get the slats standing where they belong. Palette wood provided the front/flat side, and the door.

I made the door a quarter inch shorter than the slats to give it room to swing. I added a 2"x2" so the hinges had something more to hold on to, and tied the front bits together with scrap wood for extra strength.

Step 5: Add the Top, Finish.

My shrink ray is on the fritz so I couldn't reduce my size sufficiently to climb inside the structure. Instead, I opted to stick the top on by drilling/screwing from the outside.

Once it was complete, it passed the "sit" test with flying colors, i.e. you can sit on it.

It received the same paint job that its older sibling got, and it was plopped into place. I didn't paint or seal the inside of the box, apart from some minor critter-proofing: plugging a couple of rodent-sized holes in the top.

Of course, this could be placed anywhere for an instant bench, deck box, or whatever. Two could be stacked for weirdly-shaped cabinets, or one could be used as a weirdly-shaped coffee table for weirdly shaped coffee.

That's it, thanks for reading!