Welcome back to the shop. This time, I have a simple restoration of this homemade bench. The coolest part of this project, is the legs. They are made from a bunch of horseshoes welded together to make up the legs. I always like unique uses of uncommon materials, to make a common thing. Benches are pretty common, but this use of horseshoes is not. I wish I could take credit for making these legs, but I didn’t make them. This thing has been around awhile, and needs a serious makeover.
First off, I trimmed down the length. The slats were overhanging the legs too far, causing the bench to tip when you sit near the edge. I sliced them down to make it more stable. Nobody wants to get dumped on the floor, when they’re trying to sit down. Then I began disassembling the bench. This was pretty easy because the legs were just screwed to the slats. After spending some time with a wire brush, and a wire cup on my angle grinder to clean off the rust, I applied some rust inhibiting primer to seal up the legs. Then I top coated it with some nice gloss black paint.
Next up was the slats. All I had to do was sand them down and apply some spar urethane. I originally used a gloss urethane because I had some on hand. After applying it though, I didn’t like the look, so I sanded it back, and applied some satin urethane. I like this a lot better. The gloss was just too much for the look I was going for. Then it was a quick reassembly, using some good screws. I added a couple more horseshoes to tie the slats together. This will hopefully add just a bit more strength. Thats it. The bench was done.
This was a pretty quick project, and it turned out nice. Sometimes, knocking out something quick can give you a nice feeling of accomplishment because you can see results right away. Projects don’t always have to be super complicated and take a long time. I love this use of horseshoes and its the main reason I wanted to share this project. I hop this gives you a little bit of inspiration to use something common, like these horseshoes, and create something uncommon. Thanks for stopping by.

Here’s some affiliate links to some of the products I used for this project.
Wire Brush – https://amzn.to/2pGx0QY
Wire Cup – https://amzn.to/2Ry4JsQ
Rust inhibiting primer – https://amzn.to/2RwYo0L
Gloss Black Spray Paint – https://amzn.to/2pDbH2K
Minwax Spar Urethane – https://amzn.to/2pD2pUB
Paint Brushes – https://amzn.to/2zVFEB5

Check out the project video