I like furniture made from old water skis. Building an Adirondack chair is beyond me, but I found this bench idea and figured I could do this. This would be nice in our bedroom for us to put our duffels on at the stuga. I found vintage wood water skis at an estate auction and got them for a $5 bid, plus a long drive to Marine on St Croix. They were filthy from being stored in a pole barn for decades. I took off the old boots and fins (a bit challenging with a few rusted/stripped screws). The rubber boots had melted into the wood over the years and I tried a variety of methods to get through the gunk, including scraping with a putty knife and utility knife, Goo Gone, sanding, and ultimately my dremel with the sanding drum to get the worst spots. I filled the screw holes and touched up the rough and sanded areas with a matching gel stain I had on hand, then finished the skis with 3 coats of semi gloss polyacrylic.
For the frame, I bought two 8-foot 2x3" boards and one 2x2 board (it took a while to select boards that weren't bent or full of knots- a lot of the boards were poor quality). I cut them using Cara's miter saw (so fast and accurate). I decided I wanted the frame to be slightly asymmetrical because the skis are much wider in front than in back. I cut the frame sides 46" long, one end 9" and one end 7". I cut 4 legs from the 2x2" board, each 18". I didn't have enough long screws, so another trip to the hardware store for 2.5" screws (3 trips to the hardware store in total for this project). I drilled pilot holes then screws to build the frame. I added 2 coats of stain then a coat of satin polyacrylic.
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| Dusty original condition |
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| Cleaned, holes patched |
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| Trial dremel sanding of boot residue |
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| Assembled and ready to bring north |
