Church Pew

[golfdad]

My daughter is looking for a small old church pew. If anyone has a lead on something like this please pm me.......Thankyou

 

[Dee2]

Not to high jack your thread...I'm interested in a deacon's bench. Is that the size she is looking for?

I've seen them on Craig's list in the past.

 

[Martin Roper]

There are some on CraigsList.

$295

$250

$175

 

[golfdad]

Ty Martin. I never thought to look there

 

[JimD]

It is not terribly hard to turn a large pew into a small one. On Mondays I volunteer at my church. The group does a variety of maintenance tasks like change light bulbs, fix sinks and toilets, move intercom and camera signals to new offices, etc.. But recently we have had pews that the church was not going to use any more that different staff members wanted cut down for their use in their homes. I am kind of the woodworking go to guy on the crew so it fell to me. The first ones were really old and solid mahogany. Last Monday I did a much newer pew that had a very thin mahogany layer over particle board with a padded seat. It was an extreme cut down with the starting pew at least 16 feet long and the desired pew 4 feet long. This much newer pew was like the older ones we did earlier with screws holding the ends to the back and seat and screws holding the back to the seat. On the under side the screws have been visible but where they would show there are little trim boards covering them braded on. So removal is mostly just taking off the trim carefully so it can be reused and taking out the screws. For long pews there are intermediate supports that are also screwed on with bungs over the screws. The bungs were not glued so they can be removed with a pick or really small screwdriver. Once it is in pieces, I use a track saw to neatly cut off the desired length and then fasten everything together as before. This last one was harder with the padded seat but we pulled enough staples to get it back off the edge of the seat so we could cut it and then pulled the upholstrey back over the foam padding and stapled it into place before attaching the end. The backs and seats fit into a dado on the ends that is fairly crude. Ends have all been particle board or MDF with applied mahogany moldings. It shounds like I will get to do a few more. The ends are the pieces that are in really short supply since a 16 foot or a 4 foot pew require two ends but the 16 footer can make at least 3 4 foot pews. I am confident I could make ends but I haven't volunteered for that yet. The back and seat are both curved pieces and need to be at the right angle to each other and the floor so the position of the dado on the end is one difficulty. The other is the somewhat elaborate mahogany molding applied to the junk particle board main piece. I could not reasonably make exactly that and would have to simplify it, probably into a simpler rectangle shaped piece.

Long way of saying that an experienced woodworker can turn a long pew into a short one fairly readily. It took me and one other guy about 5 hours to make the 4 footer on Monday and that was with some redoing of things I had forgotten or were different due the padded seat. One person can do this but the pieces of a 16 foot pew are quite heavy for one person (especially if it is mainly particle board).

 

[ashley_phil]

i have a deacons bench from my grandfather's home church. one of the originals from pre-civil war. my mom got it when they put in new benches probably 35 years ago and insisted it come live with me to the point she loaded into her pontiac vibe and delivered it to my door.

 

[Jclrk]

Not mine

 

[NOTW]

 

[Hmerkle]

@NOTW there is no "UGH!" Emogi! so UGH!