Summer School

Benchmark

By David Gregory

Having just moved to southeastern Minnesota, my first impression is that Rochester is fairly cosmopolitan for a mid-sized, Midwestern town. So I find myself more than a bit confused at the present set of circumstances. A bundle of twigs are assembled into a bench, and that bench is sitting in my Med City living room. What’s more, it’s the work of my own clumsy, mid-sized, Midwestern hands.

It began on a rainy Sunday morning, when I set about to build a piece of furniture through Community Education’s “Twig Furniture Making” class. Pulling up to the worn barn in Red Wing where classes are held, I met instructor Bob McNeely. He’s been teaching students for six years; he told me their abilities range from expert to non-existent. I definitely fell into the latter category. Despite a Montana upbringing, the mountain man gene never found its way into my DNA. Pieces from previous classes and McNeely’s own hand sit around the barn. They are intimidating. I had to go from a pile of wood to one of those pieces in eight hours.

After the arrival of nine classmates, Bob sat everyone down (on twig benches and chairs) to give us the ground rules and ask what we wanted to build. The choices: chairs, arbors, benches, tables. I decided to build the slab bench, with its spacious seating and apparent ease of construction. We then signed a waiver saying it wasn’t Bob’s fault if we lost an appendage to a power tool (gulp), and it was time to begin.

I cheated a little on the first assignment, which was to collect twigs in the woods. Bench builders got to take advantage of pre-pulled wood sitting in the barn, so while my classmates rummaged through the rain-drenched forest, I collected my sticks from a pile. As they wandered, I spent the next 30 minutes organizing and reorganizing, measuring and remeasuring. When the twig gatherers returned, the real work started.

The bench rests on a mortise and tenon construction. I thought Mortise and Tenon was a Captain and Tennille cover band, so Bob had to provide constant supervision. I finished what would be the legs of my bench and proceeded to the difficult part: drilling four holes into the slab.

Using something called a Forstner bit (for creating flat-bottomed holes), I drilled four holes for the legs. This sounds easier than it is. I struggled to force the bit at the correct angle, realizing the process would go faster if I had muscles.  When I finally got down to the depth necessary, Bob walked by.

“You need to make them a little deeper.”

Well, then. With a little more gruntwork, the legs were ready to be inserted for the first time. Surprisingly, they fit. Bob took me over to the saw and showed me how to cut the legs at an angle; supposedly, this would make my construction look more like a bench and less like a piece of modern art.

As I cut the legs, I came to a startling realization: I am enjoying this. I am not a construction nut, not good with angles, not comfortable unless I’m within 15 feet of a wireless connection, but I am enjoying this.  

The project sped up after the legs were in. Diagonal posts had to be added for support; these could use screws rather than mortise and tenon. Adding the back support was simple enough, and soon after, I was testing the seat to see if it could actually serve its purpose.

I felt an unusual sense of pride sitting down on the bench for the first time. There was a little apprehension as I bent over—“What if it collapses the moment I make contact?”—but the slab held.

Granted, I’m not quite Pa Ingalls of “Little House on the Prairie,” but I kept thinking of the build-it-yourself pioneers as I finished the project and sanded down the seat. Even though I am an imbecile in all things construction related, I completed a bench, one I can now sit on in the comforts of my home. There is satisfaction in getting use out of something built with one’s own hands: I have learned the joys of a day’s labor. I and my forefathers are one. Take that, IKEA.