The Woodshop Shed

Outdoor Bench

Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)


My wife requested a small bench for her garden, so of course it was time to build one. Gotta make sure I earn that chocolate/banana bread that she has perfected. My style is clean and contemporary, so I designed this bench in Sketchup based roughly on an online image of an indoor bench. I used kiln dried redwood from Lowes, and by buying some extra was able to cut around most of the knots and imperfections.I started with the top, and wanted to keep the gap spacing as consistent as possible while the bench is exposed to the elements. My solution was using splines between the 3 top pieces. This also made the top one solid unit which helped when making the mortises for the legs. The mortises were cut with a router and cleaned up with a chisel.The legs were glued up and planed to proper width, and then the tenons were cut on the table saw. I wanted the top to have a floating appearance, so the tenons were cut 1/4 longer than the depth of the mortises.I added a stretcher for stability, and decided to use sliding dovetail joints since I've never made this joint before and wanted to learn. As those who have made this joint will know, it's a bit finicky to achieve a perfect fit.I used 2 screws to attach the stretcher to the top, and when combined with the sliding dovetails and Titebond 3 it's a very solid bench. The screws were countersunk and the holes plugged with redwood plugs and sanded flush. All outside edges got a 3/8 round over. I'm leaving this bench unfinished so it will achieve a nice gray patina over time.This might be a bit over-done for outside furniture, but I might want to build this design in the future for an indoor bench using nice hardwoods, so this was somewhat a prototype. Thanks for looking!

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