Church Pew

[swcape]

Fellow Woodworkers,
My favourite niece (we all have one!!) has her heart's desire on a church pew. "Uncle Richard can you make me one for my birthday?" Sure!!!!
Ok in the "s" have no plan other than measuring the local church!!!
Anyone with a plan would be a welcome to my pray!!!
Searched the web with little luck.
On a wing and a pray hope someone in this fine forum can assist.
Richard

[Handyjack]

Work of caution. Pews by their nature are long and not flexible. This can cause problems in moving them. They might be OK in halls and large rooms (like a church) but moving them around corners in a home can cause problems. Also for delivery you would need a suitable vehicle - not the average car but perhaps a long trailer.
A family I know has one and have moved it, no steps to worry about, to their veranda beside the front door. The pew has two ends and two supports evenly spaced. Sorry unable to provide any more details at the moment.
Would niece accept the real thing? They can be bought used.

[ian]

these links might help
Church Pew Specifications (http://www.suburbanchurchsupply.com/html/pew_specifications.html)
Consumers Guide to Buying Church Furniture, Church Chairs, Church Pews, Pulpits and other Furniture for the Church (http://www.pews.org/)
Church Building 101 RULES OF THUMB (http://www.churchconstruction.com/article-churchbuilding101.php)

the critical dimensions will be
• the number of people the pew is designed to sit -- 16 inches per bum and 16 bums to the ton used to be the railways seat design mantra
• the angle of the seat and back -- and these should be adaptabe from standard chair design

[wun4us]

:rolleyes:Strange thing about church pews.....nothing standard really about them fundamentally. Only real requyirement nis a hard seat and long enough to seat X standard(?) size bodies.

LOML is assisting a long time family friend and a Catholic Parish Priest in setting up and buying all new fitout for a new church he is having constructed. He wants all secondhand pews, and herself has been hot on the blower to anybody listing (multiple) church pews for sale. To date around 70 have been purchased, all from closing or closed churches, and even those coming from any single place are not all the same.

Best shot IMHO, is arm yourself with a camera, and trot off to a church or two and photograph several pews. This should give you some idea. Their basic construction is fairly simple really, but the timber is solid and the pews heavy. Pine is a quite common timber used to reduce some weight and cost. :oo:

Best of luck!!

Forgot to men tion; they must be uncomfortable to sit on!

[ian]

Richard
I suggest you adopt a 4 "bum" seat -- that makes it around 64 inches (1700mm) long

If you can, make it out of Aust Red Cedar

[jimbur]

There are still a few for sale on ebay. They were all the rage a while back and many churches were changing to more comfortable seating and selling off the pews. Looking at the pictures on ebay should give you some idea of scaling. You will be forgiven for any errors.:U
Cheers,
Jim

[ian]

But Richard is in Yass.
There's more than one nice old church in town so he wonder around them with a sketch pad, folding rule and angle diviner