Old Church Pews
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I’ve a friend who mentioned his small church is moving to a new building that has 14’ pews they want to remove.
I will need to look at them but I sure as to possible projects to come from them. Imagine I could cut them down to a smaller length. Possibly take the cutoffs & use them for other projects?
Open to ideas before I commit to more stuff.
Imagine all understand that predicament.
JoeSorry, meant “I am unsure as to what to do with them”
Your approach sounds like what I would think. A source of some good wood to repurpose.
I am a retired pastor. We once had a similar situation. I ended up with eleven heart pine pews eleven feet long. I made threee kitchen cupboards and two 7 foot dining tables and benches out of them. They sold well and I made a bit
I was a pastor for 47 years. About 20 years ago we built a new church and had to dismantle the old one (built in 1762). The pews in the old one were made of heart pine. Though the pews were made by the same pattern, the quality of workmanship varied. I suspect that a plan was determined and families made their own pew. The seat was eleven feet long, fifteen inches wide and two inches thick. The back were made of two rails that were about six inches wide and the same thickness as the seat. Families in the church took many of the pews home, but more than fifteen had come apart. I took those pieces home to my own shop. Over the next several years I made three trestle dining tables and four cupboards (pie safes in the Southern US) and at least four wall clocks .Frequently, on Craigs list, people want to give away free of charge, old pianos. These are wonderful source of mahogany, some times ebony, and genuine pieces of ivory that can become accents is projects. You can sell the iron it the piano for scrap and the maple sound board can make cutting board, jewelry boxes and other small projects.
Old pews are a great source of seasoned wood.
I know this is an old thread, but…
I recently made a Sellers Home Rocking chair from oak bought at a local timber yard, and the wood cost me over £400 (there’s a picture of this on the latest WMC gallery news). A made that chair for a friend, so had to sell it on.I decided to make another one for myself.
Our local church has been selling off some of its pews, and I managed to pick one up for about £60. I have managed to salvage enough timber from that to make another Rocking Chair, which is still work in progress currently but is going well. This is not oak, but west African Abura wood. It’s much finer grained than oak and easier to work, but also not as strong. I think it will come out well, fingers crossed…
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