Bill Satko
Member
- Messages
- 3,223
- Location
- Methow Valley
Years ago, when Benchcraft.com first created their Swing Away Seat, I picked one up but never installed it. This week I finally got around to it. I bought it without the seat so most of my time was spent making one.
I went to the storage unit and retrieved a chunk of a Douglas Fir timber from my stash of wood. Ripped three boards from it with my handsaw and hand planed them flat enough to run them through thickness planer. Glued them up to create a seat blank. Cut a rough circle with a scroll saw and fine tuned the circle with a block plane and spokeshave.
I then chamfered the edges with a spokeshave. All in all, the seat turned out really nice.
After finishing the seat with a mixture of BLO, Paint Thinner and Varnish, I secured it to the cast iron mount with the screws provided by Benchcrafted. They don’t supply the hardware for securing the bracket to your bench. I bought 1/2" black oxide square head lag bolts from Blacksmithbolts.com. The internet was all over the map as to what size pilot hole you should drill for a 1/2" lag bolt. 5/16” was the most common result. That didn’t make any sense to me as the minimum thread diameter is 3/8”. I went with 3/8” for a pilot hole and probably should have used 7/16”, as with a 1/2" socket wrench and a 6” extension, I was barely able to drive the two lag bolts all the way in. I drilled the holes with a hand brace.
And here is the finished project.
I went to the storage unit and retrieved a chunk of a Douglas Fir timber from my stash of wood. Ripped three boards from it with my handsaw and hand planed them flat enough to run them through thickness planer. Glued them up to create a seat blank. Cut a rough circle with a scroll saw and fine tuned the circle with a block plane and spokeshave.
I then chamfered the edges with a spokeshave. All in all, the seat turned out really nice.
After finishing the seat with a mixture of BLO, Paint Thinner and Varnish, I secured it to the cast iron mount with the screws provided by Benchcrafted. They don’t supply the hardware for securing the bracket to your bench. I bought 1/2" black oxide square head lag bolts from Blacksmithbolts.com. The internet was all over the map as to what size pilot hole you should drill for a 1/2" lag bolt. 5/16” was the most common result. That didn’t make any sense to me as the minimum thread diameter is 3/8”. I went with 3/8” for a pilot hole and probably should have used 7/16”, as with a 1/2" socket wrench and a 6” extension, I was barely able to drive the two lag bolts all the way in. I drilled the holes with a hand brace.
And here is the finished project.
. You're sure to enjoy having that so handy.
