The Montshire Museum Project

will took this picture at frog hollow yesterday when he dropped off the bench ... they decided to display it with the frame that will be buried in the ground under the installed bench ... i guarantee, no one will be walking off with it once it's installed ... other entries are in the frames above ...
5/1/11 ready for the show that opens at frog hollow in burlington next week ... it will be there for a month and then installed at the museum ... the opening's next friday evening ... come by if you are in the area ... it should be fun ...
we're coming down the home stretch on the montshire museum bench. the top half of this post i wrote back in early february and now we're wrapping up the actual construction .. if you missed the post back then, it's a really nice project and a nice collaboration with the museum and frog hollow to get artists' work in the public domain. we are flattered to be included ... scroll down to see the bench in process ... we'll be finishing it up later this week ..
2/1/11 We were flattered to get a letter in the mail Saturday from The Montshire Museum of Science. They announced a competition last fall for the purchase of 5 benches, made by Vermont artists and furniture makers, for their outdoor 'garden walk' project. Thank you Dave Hurwitz for reminding me (several times) to enter. they selected a new version of our 'Bridges' bench that we made for the 'State of Craft ... 50 Years of Craft in Vermont' show at the Bennington Museum last spring ... We're flattered and honored and I located the chestnut planks we'll use for the wood part earlier today .... ready to go ... All five benches will be displayed at Frog Hollow in Burlington for a brief time before being installed in their permanent location at the museum in May ... Looking forward to it ... Click the photos and specs to enlarge them ...

step one ... roll the 3/8ths by 2 steel into two identical arcs and weld on the top rails and the bridge struts ...
prime and paint the steel
make the wood base and lay it out for the bolt holes ...
here will is drilling for the rivets that will go in the edge of the seat ... he made a jig with the layout holes on the drill press and then drilled the holes in the seat edge freehand using the jig as a guide
we collaborated on the installation base design with the museum installation experts and we will install this base on the bottom of the base after the show ... all stainless and pressure treated ..
we'll be finishing the chestnut using a penofin 'verde' color .. we've used penofin products in the past and they are excellent, except for the smell when you first apply it ... it dissipates pretty quickly though and leaves a nice water resistant finish ..
and we got a nice photo of our original bench in the recent montshire news letter ... thanks ! i'll post more photos when we're finished ...