Dovtailed 2 inch recycled Oregon Bench

I must be crazy. With limited hand cut dovetail experience I'm going for broke on this one.

Ah, getting somewhere now (Chrome has just changed appearance so maybe that's to do with it. Will add the progress pics below. I got this Oregon from a mate farmer who had a clearing sale last weekend. The house had been built around 1900, and I scored two old verandah beams (4.5 metres 200x60) plus a few smaller bits.

They took a lot of cleaning up and removing nails and bog and 120 years of paint layers :(

Did you select “Go Advanced”?

It's no longer giving me the option Lappa??? Curious. Still whacking away at things trying to get it sorted, including the old reboot, but no good as yet

So here's where I'm at so far

Attachment 442474

Planed and jointed to 340 x 50 mm. Bench will be 1 metre long by 450 mm high
Attachment 442475

Dang this stuff is fragile. Painstaking process cutting the dovetails. I opted for raised tails and pins so I can round them over and hopefully hide 'problems.'

After cleaning up joinery
Attachment 442476

Dry fit time
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Now to round over the protrusions, and mix some epoxy to fill the holes and cracks in the top

Question re resin/sap in this stuff.
Attachment 442479

It's a bugger on the thicknesser (spent 2 hours cleaning the rubber rollers altogether while prepping) and messy to cut and chisel. 120 years old and still sticky, wow! I'm hoping it will stay stable and be OK to cover with poly.

Has anyone dealt with large pockets of this resin in Oregon?

Attachment 442486Attachment 442485

Second dry fit with chamfered edges on tails and pins. This is the second round of epoxy that has sunk into that old timber too :)

Interesting with the resin still being soft after all those years. I would have expected it to have become hard years ago.
Your dovetails look pretty good, do you think that a large dovetail is harder or easier than a small one?

Regards
Keith

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pedro66

Interesting with the resin still being soft after all those years. I would have expected it to have become hard years ago.
Your dovetails look pretty good, do you think that a large dovetail is harder or easier than a small one?

Regards
Keith

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Well, I'm pretty much a novice at dovetails, but I think harder in that any misalignment is amplified Keith. I've got a couple of little gaps that will need filling, maybe with a plane shaving.

And yes, I'm puzzled as to how resin stays sticky all those years. Though I did just look up about amber, which is fossilised tree resin, so maybe if I leave it alone for another thousand or so years......

Attachment 442700Attachment 442699
Getting there. Took four lots of epoxy in the end, even the tiny cracks just drank it in, but I wanted the top to be resistant to water as it will sit outside.

Putting a mix of Poly, BLO and Shellite on then will move to thinned Poly for a few more coats.

Pretty happy with the result considering Oregon is NOT a timber to work things like dovetails in, or indeed make furniture out of too much chipping, too soft. Even misplaced fingernails leave gouges. But when it's what you've got, use it :)

Looks good

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mnb

Looks good

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Thanks Mnb, the missus is happy and that's the main thing :)

This looks great! Im currently making a mantle of sorts out of some 200 x 100 or so oregon beams and was looming at how to finish it. I think epoxy and poly will be the go

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