Sitting Bench

This is a very simple project, a medium sized sitting bench.  It's about 12" wide, 19" tall, and 40" long.  It is built in a Shaker style out of construction grade pine.

Although it is not apparent in this small image, the grain pattern is all rift-sawn.  Since this is not how the average 2x10 construction grade lumber is sawn I achieve it artificially.  A brief explanation of the process is to take 2x10 or 2x12 yellow pine construction lumber and rip it into strips a little thicker than the intended final board thickness.  These strips are then rotated from the original cut direction 90 degrees and glued together.  After the glue has cured for a long time, the lumber is processed normally using jointer and planer to the desired thickness.

This technique although time consuming produces wide quatersawn / riftsawn grain patterns in inexpensive pine boards free of knots and other defects in any thickness desired.