Progress!

Finished the repair job yesterday and was able to get back in the shop today. We are expecting rain tonight which is sorely needed. I hope we get enough to finally bring the river back. I worked for a little while on the bench Sunday but it was such beautiful day Peggy and I spent some time in the garden getting it ready for spring. We planted onions and weeded.

Sunday I got the arms glued on...

and spent some time drawing the profile on one of the head crests. Kinda hard to see but if you click on it you can see it better.

The head crests also curve backwards. This is the top view.

This is the bottom. I also laid out where the back slats will go. There will be 5 under each head crest.

Here's a better shot of the profile. I use the lines as a guide for drilling the holes for the back slats at the drill press.

Today I shaped the arms This is the final shape. You can see the curve that was created by re-sawing and glueing. Adds a lot more interest than a straight arm.

It gets rounded over on the top and bottom.

This is before shaping.

I start the process by drawing a line down the center of the sides. This is my guide. I shape to these lines from the top and then from the bottom.  Then I use my grinder with the 24 grit sanding wheel and make sweeping motions to round the arm. Then the die grinder with the carbide bit to shape the transitions to the legs followed by the rasp and sanding.

Looks better.

Front leg transition. You can see the line that I left. Again just for interest.

Close up.

Rear leg joint. Still lots of sanding to do. I also started the back slats this evening by making a template and cutting one out just to see if I'm on the right track. By tomorrow evening we should have a good idea of what the finished bench will look like. I will mail a color sample to Renee tomorrow since this piece will be stained.

The guys got the rest of the forms done and steel in for the garden shed. I think they wanted to pour today but we got a few sprinkles with more expected tonight. It will have a porch on the front and side.

Here's the onions we planted. We might have a booth at the farmer's market this year!