I built this little pounding bench as a Christmas gift for my son. It is made out of oak, with some unknown wood for the pegs (I'm guessing poplar.) I apologize for the condition of the bench, but when the photos were taken my son had been using it for it's intended purpose.
The bench is made up of three pieces. The center piece is glued into the sides in dados, and has six chamfered holes to hold the pegs. All of the edges of the toy are chamfered too keep them from being too sharp.
The hammer is a piece of 3/8" oak dowel glued into a 8/4 square of oak, that has been cut into an octagon. Again, the edges were chamfered.
The pegs are simply pieces of 1" dowel with the ends chamfered and a notch cut with a bandsaw in either side. I'm not sure why I did this, other than the fact that every pounding bench I've seen has these slots cut in the pegs, so there must be a reason.
I tied a length of cord to eye hooks placed in the hammer handle and one edge of the bench, then put a drop of super-glue on the knots to keep them from coming undone.
The center of the bench is left unstained, whle everything else got Minwax Provincial. I put several coats of satin poly on the whole toy, with the pegs and peg holes receiving some extra coats because they would be the points where most of the wear would occur.
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This page last updated on 06/28/2018