IEBPROJECT CASE STUDY
19 / 33
CT 00:00:00 T+00:00
A long low bench seen from a raised three quarter angle, a dark walnut frame with splayed legs carrying a cream coloured hand woven rope seat, its fringe draping over the near end

WoodworkingSolo buildDrawing 19 of 33

Bench

Walnut and maple frame, with the seat woven on by hand out of rope. Most of the problem is keeping the frame square, not holding the weight.

Sheet 02 of 06/Not a box

A bench is not a box

A box only has to look right. A bench gets sat on.

Two identical end frames in pale unfinished hard maple standing on a shop floor, each a pair of tapered legs joined by a top rail, with rail stock lying in front of them
PL 02End assemblies in bare maple. Hard maple carries the racking load, and the walnut veneer goes on afterwards so the bench still reads as one wood.
The completed bench frame with no seat on it, finished dark walnut, showing the two long top rails, the lower side stretchers and the cross tie between them
PL 03The frame, before any rope. Everything the seat later hides: walnut rails, lower stretchers, a centre cross tie, and legs splayed out at the foot.

Sheet 03 of 06/Racking

Racking is what kills a bench

What kills a bench is not strength, it is racking: the frame leaning sideways a little more every time somebody sits on one end.

Close low view of one corner of the bench, showing a leg meeting the lower stretcher and the seat rail, with woven rope wrapping over the rail above
PL 04Where the leg meets the rail. Mortise and tenon, reinforced with a screw, and the warp cord turning under the rail just above it.
The finished bench seen from standing height at an angle, showing the full length of the woven seat, the splayed legs and the lower stretcher between them
PL 05The frame from standing height. Splayed legs and the stretcher tying them together, which is the geometry doing the work.
Macro photograph of the woven seat, showing individual cords wrapping over the wooden rail on the left and interlacing into a diagonal twill pattern to the right
PL 06The weave up close. Four millimetre macrame rope wrapped around the rail, then woven back across itself in a twill.

Sheet 04 of 06/The weave

The seat only works in tension

Rope has no stiffness of its own, so sitting on it pulls the two rails toward each other instead of pushing them down.

Looking straight down the length of the bench at the finished rope seat, a continuous cream coloured weave running from one end to the other
PL 07The seat from above. Every pass went on by hand in the Danish cord style, over the full length of the bench.
A handheld video walking around the finished bench, moving from a three quarter view down along the length of the woven seat
PL 08A walk around the finished bench. Handheld, and the only way to see how the frame and the seat read from every side.
A short handheld video panning across the woven rope seat of the bench
PL 09A pass along the seat. Close enough to watch the twill run the whole length of the weave.

Sheet 05 of 06/Flat floor

Floors are not flat

A bench built perfectly square still rocks on a real floor, and a bench that rocks is a bench that racks.

The bench photographed square from the side at a low angle, so the seat rails, the four splayed legs and the full length lower stretcher all read as one structure

Sheet 06 of 06/Next time

What I would do differently

Draw it first, and write down the load case, even one sentence of it.

PL 10Side elevation, on the floor. The whole frame in one line: the rails, the splayed legs, and the stretcher tying the two ends together.