A bench for our house

As a fan of George Nakashima, I've always wanted to make something using a slab of wood.  The opportunity to do this was presented to me by my wife's asking for a small bench for our front entry.

A trip to Urban Lumber in Martinez, California provided the slab.  It's California Walnut -- a neat wood that has a more interesting figure than regular Walnut coupled with a reddish brown color.  As a hard wood it works better than a softer wood and finishes well.

At first I wanted to mortise the legs so that a stretcher could pass through them and receive a mortise in each end for a "tusk" or wedge-shaped piece that puts tension on the stretcher.  But faced with other projects on my plate, I decided to simply attach the stretcher to the legs with 3-1/2" stainless steel screws and cover the screw heads with a contrasting wood plugs.  Under the seat I made four blocks -- one on each side of each leg -- screwed the blocks to the seat, and passed two carriage bolts through the blocks.  This, along with the stretcher, provides the needed engineering support for the piece.

I finished it with a Dutch polyurethane product that had me put two coats of Brilliant  -- with sanding with 220 grit between each coat -- and a finish coat of Satin -- with a final scrub with 0000 steel wool.  The result lets the figure and color show through but also protects the seat from wear.