Alan Peters Oak bench circa 1980 ish

I recently sent an oak bench back to it's maker after a 1/3rd century faithful service. It really was on it's last legs even before my daughter's then boyfriend put his foot through one of the rotten seat rails. Even so 33 years is not bad for untreated oak outdoors.

The original design was by Alan Peters and published in the Woodworker about 1980. You can clearly see the influence of his Japanese adventure, which influenced much of his work, and his Barnsley Arts and Crafts background.

I took measurements and made a sketch before putting it onto the firewood pile so I intend to make a modified version shortly. I'll put the drawing up on here later for anyone who is interested.

This was a far cry from the youthful chippy who was so proud of his first hardwood job, made at the local school evening class with wooden jack planes and hand tools. I chickened out halfway and got my brother in law to put the back slats through the thicknesser at work. It was all in air dried English Oak with drawbored, pegged and wedged M & T's throughout.

I was so into natural things I fastened the slats with oak pegs knocked into the frame. Amazingly they held tight for the full distance.  What finally killed it was rain getting into the exposed tenon ends in the top of the front legs.

We weren't off to a medieval banquet, that was the Laura Ashley "look" of the time, beautiful English ethnic!