Bench for the ages

[Charlie Self]

Lie Nielsen's current news, with orders suspended until they clear some of the current nine month backlog:

've gotta go wipe the slobber off my keyboard.

[Chris Friesen]

I'm not convinced that the stretchers are wide enough. The skinny stretchers are fine when the legs are mortised into the top like on the original, but when the top is removable the stretchers provide more of the racking resistance and I'm not sure that they will hold up long-term.

Chris

[RicodJour]

The article said there are two sets of stretchers - one up, one down. The draw bolts will keep things tight, so where is it going?

R

[Chris Friesen]

The upper stretchers go side-to-side, not end-to-end. There is a single bolt in the center of each lower stretcher...the thinner the stretcher the less racking force is necessary to compress the wood in the legs beyond yield, allowing racking.

The relationship is basically linear--given the same materials, a stretcher twice as wide can withstand twice as much racking force.

Chris

[fredfighter]

To be precise, racking will occur even while wood is only stressed within the elastic range. Stressing it to the yield damages it permanently.

Diagonal braces could be added to the bench, many would probably want to add shelves or cabinets underneath for storage anyhow.