No more rickety benches.

[Douglasmahard@AOL.COM]

Hi all:

School benches are notorious for becoming rickety.  This always makes the 
bench vulnerable to damage of some type, often times fatal if the technician 
isn't around to tighten screws and leg bolts.  The following is a 
modification I made to several school benches over two years ago and they are 
holding up wonderfully.  I should note that I made sure the music director in 
each situation knew they weren't going to be able to use the storage 
compartment in the bench. They were fine with this because they never used 
them anyway.

First remove the lid hinges and prop, then tighten all screws and corner 
bolts as best you can.  Then scribe the profile of the bench rails onto the 
legs.  Pad your work bench to prevent scratching the lid and place the top 
face down on the pad.
With the legs attached, center the bench on the lid and scribe the outline of 
the bench to the underside of the lid. 

Next, remove the legs and take a 3/4" chisel and scrape down to bare wood 
inside your scribe marks on both the underside of the lid and the side of the 
legs.  Also scrape the top of the legs and the tops of the rails.  Using 
epoxy (I used West Systems) glue the bottom board into its dado or onto its 
ledge.  Check for square and either let that set up or tack it into place.  
Epoxy the legs to the rails using the original corner bolts as your clamps.  
With the bench upright, epoxy and clamp the lid onto the rails and top side 
of the legs.  

As mentioned above, I have modified several benches in the field this way 
over the past two years and they show no signs of weakening.  I used this 
same method on the legs of my artist bench that goes out with the rental 
piano and it is holding up nicely.  I should note that the artist bench 
travels in its own padded road case.

Hope it helps.

Doug Mahard