open bicycle/aarn: city bench from re-purposed materials [retail.furn]
i have been trying to help out open bicycle as much as i can with little things that would help to make the transition to the new space as seamless as possible. it was on a sunday a month or so ago and i was in kind of an off mood when i woke up. i went on a long solo bike ride and then spent the rest of the day in the basement of open bicycle crafting a bench from materials that they had salvaged from the previous location of the shop.
joshua showed me to a pile of rough-cut 4x6-in fir timbers. using a skillsaw, a 1-in chisel, and a makeshift fence that i screwed to the raw material, i cut a 120-in long half-lap joint, clamped, glued and screwed it together from the bottom. that evening, jamie sanded down the bench and put a first coat of dark stain onto the wood. the next day i came back and notched out the sides of the bench so that we could re-purpose some square stock rectangular framing (these used to be a base for a display table in the old shop) as the legs of the bench.
the legs were screwed to the body of the bench with 4-in lag screws, then covered with a few coats of polyurethane. i think that it’s probably the most popular bench in the square. it could be that it’s right next to a bus stop though.
