Charlton Bench

I have lots of old scraps of wood I've been hanging onto and running out of space to store them so I decided this next project would gobble up some of that stockpile. I kept some old 2x4's from a renovation on my 100 year old home in Hamilton. Some wood nerds really like working with old wood because it is from old growth forests so I thought I would try and see what all the fuss was about.

Old growth wood is sought after because it comes from trees that got to live a lot longer than trees that are cut for wood today. That means there is more heartwood and the growth rings are tighter or closer together so old growth wood should be stronger and more stable (less warping) than new growth wood. Some people like the grain patterns better as well which I think is due to the tighter growth rings. But lets see if this applies to pine (or whatever it is) from my 100 year old home...

I didn't want to over think this project so I started by planing the old warped wood down to square off the material for a big glue-up to see what I had.

I started with a cheap electric hand planer to see if there were anymore pesky nails hiding under the surface before running this material through the 6" jointer and stationary planner.

Some people like the look of the old texture/patina of old timber like you can see on the edge of the board above but I want this project to be sleek, not rustic so it's getting planed off.

The shape from the glue-up was looking like a bench seat to me so that's what I plan to do. I cut a 3" radius into the ends of the boards before glue-up and plan to carry that around the sides of the bench as well.

Here's some shots of the final glue-up for the bench seat. I like the proportions, I can work with this.

Not sure what to do about the bumps and scrapes from the old wood, it looks cool but I don't want it to add to an old or rustic look, I'll come up with something. 

Next week I'll drill the bench seat for staked legs and then rough out the final shape of the bench seat. 

Ciao ciao for now.