Originally made from scrap in a day it lasted well over a year before needed refinishing and repair.
The Completed V3
What may have felt like years ago, perhaps it was, I made a bench / coffee table for a couple of friends. Taking only a day to complete and I gave it to them unfinished and raw for them to do or not do as they saw fit. Suffice to say it stayed that way and over time with parties, food and drinks it got super dirty and eventually broke. The brake was because I wanted the legs on one side to look as if it should not be stable or attached and likely to fall out. eventually they did with all the wear and tear. I took the bench back with intention of cleaning it, fixing it and protecting it. The goal was to make it better than new and stronger than ever.
The key issue with the design was that there was no lateral bracing and the leg was mounted in one direction. The solution was to add steel tabs to the legs and notch out the wood 90 degrees to the legs so that it can resist movement from either side. Tabs were cut and welded. The welds were ground down as low as I could. The locations of the tabs marked on each piece of wood and proceeded to drill and notch out the wood. I needed it to be a tight the fit to insure that it would be able to resist side movement and be stable. Once everything was fitted I disassembled and set them out til I got to protecting them with a finish. The finishes were rather straight forward, the wood was finished with a polyurethane and the metal with a matte clear enamel. A few coats of each and it was set. I also countersink the screws so that they would be flush and unseen when looking under. By the end it looked better than before as it got a bit darker and more defined. It also needed up looking better in my friends place as it was closer in tone to their floors. The tabs worked great. There was no way the legs were coming off. The process itself was in total 4/5 days.
Process
