Old Wood Bench

How to salvage wood that isn't good for anything.

Step 1: Materials

2 very old and quite rotten boards (from a house dismont)

And some pallet wood

Step 2: Tools

Only hand tools were used:

saws

chisels

hand plane

Hand drill

knife

hammers

brush

sand paper

torch lighter and camper stove

Step 3: 1: Planing and Sizing the Bench Top

The first thing to do was to plane the boards, so that I could then decide how to assemble them.

Because the top of the bench is made out of the 2 boards, with a little gap at an end, to recreate some kind of a naturaly cracked board look.

Once planed, I took a long look at the boards, to adjust them how I wanted, and then clamped them this way to trace an cut the unwanted (and rotted) excess wood.

Only now, I knew precisely the dimensions of my bench, which to this point were simply evaluated.

Which is the reason why I wont give any, since it is almost entirely depending on the boards.

Step 4: 2: Bench Top Assembly

Now I had to clamp them together in the wanted position, and saw right in between the 2 boards, to create a good joint surface. Indeed none of the boards were perfectly square, so they were not really touching each other. (not enough to glue them anyway).

Then I have made butterfly joint (from pallet wood scraps) and some sticks out of bamboo that was sitting in the garare, in order to make the joint stronger.

I rounded out the bamboo sticks (with a knife) to an average diameter, and hand drilled one board to required sized holes. Duck taped a drill bit to shovit down the holes, and mark the opposite board.

Drilled the second board, and glued them together.

While curing, I determined the placement of the butterfly joints (decided to put only 2).

Once cured, I chiseled the wood out and glued them aswell.

Step 5: 3: Legs and Top Support

I made the legs out of the big wood from the pallet, and the support for the top, from the small boards of that same one.

The idea was to make a tenon mortaise assembly, with the least amount of wood carving to do. (only in the heavier wood of the leg).

For that, I cutted pallet boards to different sizes in order to obtain, onced glued together, a tenon, and a place for the top to sit on.

I also cutted in half 2 boards lengthwise, to add strength on the overall structure.

I checked for everything to line up properly, cut off a piece in all four corners of the bench top, and then glued my tenons and mortaises together.

I opted for a wedge mitered through tenons, with burnt pieces to hammer in for a contrast look (with poor result to be honest).

Step 6: 4: Shou Sugi Ban

Again, in search of contrast, I decided to burn everything but the bench top.

I used a torch lighter and a camping stove, then brushed and sanded the wood. First 120 grit, then 240.

I also cutted the over hanging tenons to reveal the brighter wood (again, quite poor result).

I glued the 2 pairs of legs and the horizontal support once burnt so that it was easyer to handle while burning.

Step 7: 5: Bench Top Adjustment

Then I checked how the top was sitting on the support structure, and removed, by planing, somme wood on a corner.

Once it sitted flush, that was it.

Step 8: PS

I have to point out that I should have applyed some protection to it.

I wanted to put lin oil, but couldn't found any that was entirely natural...so I didn't...

I also want to apologize for the lack of details, pictures, and dimensions given.

Didn't have that much time to whrite the instructable (not as much as wanted and required to make it clean clear and simple).

Also, English isn't my first language, so there might be some big ugly mistakes...my bad!

Thank you for reading anyway!