Some Slab Benches

Stuart Ablett

Member
Messages
15,917
Location
Tokyo Japan
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Above benches by Mr. P. Krom!!


I hope he dosen't mind me showing pictures of his handiwork.


Mine will not be as nice, certainly not as pretty wood, but I hope to at least get close to the beautiful benches Mr Krom makes ;D


The wood is from the Doug Fir log that I cut out on my electric chainsaw mill, I cut it in half, down to 90Cm or about 3' long.


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Fresh off the chainsaw mill, yep no ripping chain here, that is a ROUGH cut.


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This is where a scrub plane really shines, it removes a lot of wood in a hurry!


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Next up I use the #5 plane, 45° to the left, then 45° to the right, then with the grain lengthwise.


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The mighty #7 is up next to make sure it's all flat.


Flip it over and repeat, making sure the board is also the same thickness as well.


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Then there were two


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It does make a bit of a mess to be sure ;D


Next up I filled the loose knots with some epoxy, I'll plane those down once it cures.


OK, on to the next step, the legs......


I'm going to need to figure out how to drill a hole all the way through that slab.... ???
 
if i ever get caught up stu i got soe of that to do as well.. yours are coming along great. that looks like a 4.5 scrub??? i thought 4.5 are better for smoothing. the scrub i use is a 3 and i do have a 4s setup for it as well..
 
Looks good Stu!

Can you go through how you used the scrub and smoothing planes for us "plane newbies". For the rough cuts (scrub) are you going across the grain too? What about with the smoothing plane?
 
Looks good Stu!

Can you go through how you used the scrub and smoothing planes for us "plane newbies". For the rough cuts (scrub) are you going across the grain too? What about with the smoothing plane?

Yes, you go across the grain with the scrub plane, if you went with it, you would tear out huge long chunks of wood, that would be BAD. By going across the grain, you tear out smaller chunks. With harder woods like Maple, a 45° plane of attack works well too.

What kind of finish did you use on these?
The benches at the top of the page, the finished ones (the NICE ones) are not mine, they are a friend's work from another online forum. I think he does "a good soaking in BLO/Oil & thinner, and 2 or 3 coats of Oil Poly". I plan on following a similar finish regime.
 
Stu, I've made a number of simple stools and benches for my BIL's Viking reenactment group, with similarly angled and wedged legs through the seats. To make the holes, I just used a Forstner bit on the drill press, with a simple angled jig attached to the drill press table to make sure all the angles were consistent.

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I don't remember exactly why they were on the roof...I think we were trying to speed up the drying time of the finish.
 
You are set up to be the bench king with that new chain saw rig. Are you leaving the notches in your tops for character or are you going to try and patch them?
 
Getting back to this.

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I made up a simple jig, it is just two boards with hinges and then two wedges cut at 10°, then the drillpress table is tilted at 10° to the right, and I drill two leg hole on opposite corners

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then 10° to the left and drill the other two holes.

This seems to work well.

The holes are 38mm or 1 1/2".

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I had time to do just one leg this morning.
It has a very slight taper to it, I did not want to go with thin legs, the tops are 8cm or 3 3/16" thick, so I wanted the legs to be a bit thicker, they are about 5cm or 2" thick and they taper down to about 4.5cm or 1 5/8" not much of a taper, but I also wanted to keep the leg end wide enough so they don't sink into the ground.

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I have it stick up past the top of the bench just a bit so I can cut it off flush later.

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I'll just a kerf in the end of the leg and then drive a wedge into it, I guess I'll need to glue it in place too.
I'm wondering what I should use for glue, this is going to sit outside, so maybe epoxy is best? I'm going to put several coats of WB poly on it, I have some stuff that is designed to go outside and it is fairly durable. I'll also epoxy the ends of the legs maybe up about an inch from the bottom, to stop them sucking up any moisture and rotting.

Other suggestions for a good durable finish?

Cheers!

PS these are fun!
 
I'm wondering what I should use for glue, this is going to sit outside, so maybe epoxy is best? I'm going to put several coats of WB poly on it, I have some stuff that is designed to go outside and it is fairly durable. I'll also epoxy the ends of the legs maybe up about an inch from the bottom, to stop them sucking up any moisture and rotting.

Looking good, Stu. I really like the colour and pronounced straight grain of that leg! :thumb: Kind of a shame they're going out into the weather.

I'd probably either do TightbondII or Epoxy, just like you're thinking.

But you know it's just going to slow it down, I don't think anything we've got is going to "stop" the eventual decay. :(

Edit to add: Typo -- I meant to say Tightbond III (three, not two)
 
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Looking good, Stu. I really like the colour and pronounced straight grain of that leg! :thumb: Kind of a shame they're going out into the weather.

I'd probably either do TightbondII or Epoxy, just like you're thinking.

But you know it's just going to slow it down, I don't think anything we've got is going to "stop" the eventual decay. :(

Thanks, I too like the look of this wood.

I know that in the end they will rot away, but I bet many good years of use will be had from them before that!
 
Looking good Stu! :thumb:

Domo!

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I got the other three legs done, did not take long, they are a very simple design.

Now I just have to cut the kerfs in each one and then cut some long thin wedges. I'm thinking I'll use some fo that Rosewood I got from the same house, should be a nice color to contrast with the Doug Fir.

Cheers!
 

That's the way to do it!
What is that mark on the lower edge of the front/left leg in the photo?

Oh yeah, and what's with the PINK/GREEN handles on the Bessey clamps in the background!? :gonnagetit:

Really, you've got to get rid of all the white handles now and get a proper alternating pink/green pattern going.
(Who, Type-A personality, me? What makes you say that? :cool:)
 
That's the way to do it!
What is that mark on the lower edge of the front/left leg in the photo?

That is a nail hole, does not go all the way through

Oh yeah, and what's with the PINK/GREEN handles on the Bessey clamps in the background!? :gonnagetit:

My very funny daughters sent me some hockey tape as requested, they sent half in white and the other half in pink and green, very funny girls.... I don't have a clue where they get that from :rolleyes:

Really, you've got to get rid of all the white handles now and get a proper alternating pink/green pattern going.
(Who, Type-A personality, me? What makes you say that? :cool:)

Domo!
 
I used epoxy on all the ones I did, Stu. They've held up well so far. :thumb: Also, since my BIL wanted a somewhat rustic look, I ended up using pressure-treated fence posts (from the Borg) for the legs. After I got the system down, I was able to turn the tenon on one end and round the other end in just a couple of minutes per leg.
 
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I got one done, well it still needs a couple of coats of varnish, or urethane or some kind of film finish on it, but it does have two good generous coats of Tung oil on it now. The bottoms of the legs are epoxied, and around the bottom of the leg up an inch or so, that should keep the legs from wicking water.

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I used my flush cut Japanese pull saw to cut the ends of the legs off, worked really well, then some clean up with my low angle block plane and some light sanding to finish it off.

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Yep really pleased with these, I think If I do some nice crotch wood I could have some crowd pleasers here.

Cheers!
 
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