31 - How to Build Garden Bench with a Hidden Storage Compartment

[Music] hi everyone my name is James and for today's project I am going to build a pair of garden benches out of western red cedar and they're going to have storage in them I'd like to start by thinking all of my viewers all of my subscribers and of course my patreon supporters I would also like to thank all of you who purchase products through the links in my descriptions those go directly to help support our channel so to start this project I made a materials list and then I went to my local home center and picked up all of the cedar that I would need for this project I'm starting with the legs which have a strong angle on the back of them so I'm going to use my tapering jig here which I created in another video which I'll put a link to that in the description this allows me to make just about any long angle cuts that I need all I have to do is draw it out set it in place and cut it and it will cut perfectly on my line and in the event that you can't cut all the way through a 4x4 in a single pass it's no problem you get most of the cut done and just do the followup with a handsaw there's a little Ridge left from the handsaw and so we can clean that up with either a block plane or you can even sand it off so I cut the legs for both of them just a little bit longer than what I needed to and I'm going to turn them up flush together with one cut on the chop saw that way they end up at exactly the same height and here I'm just cutting the remainder of the end leg pieces out of 4x4 stock when I went and picked up the theater I specifically got smooth cedar you could get rough cedar as well but I think the smooth is probably a little bit easier to sit on the more comfortable and and less splinters and here are all the materials needed for the two side legs on both benches I took just a moment at this stage to sand these get rid of any rough spots or splinters that I might have created when cutting the pieces and I'm going to begin the assembly here it may look a little confusing for a moment but it should make sense soon and in case you're interested in building this project I do have a detailed set of plans and you can see from the plans exactly how all the pieces go together for this bench and I will put a link to those in the description I have used a little spacer block at the bottom there to give me the right height up for the seat rail portion of the bench so for all of these joints you're going to see me using glue and screws I'll use a variety of screws the glue probably isn't necessary I just have a habit I like to glue everything together that I do I want it to last forever and I tend to overuse glue a little bit and now this is just a good opportunity to practice that so here I'm pre drilling a hole about an inch down into the back 4x4 in order to allow me to have the large screws I'm going to put in recessed just a little bit and I'm going to clamp it snugly before putting the screw in this is a number 12 by 5 and 5/8 inch screw it's made by grk screws it's rated for outdoor use and there is a picture that I'll put a link to those in the description in case you're interested in building something like this I really like their screws I think they do a good job and here's the joint where that long angle is that I had to put on the tapering jig on the table saw and so I want to put a lot of glue here and I'll have a series of screws that actually hold this together this is set back at 10 degrees it's 10 degrees relative to the seat there are many organized on that say a bench is most comfortable if it can tilt back about 10 degrees from the level of the seat and that's what we've done here so I'm taking a couple of minutes to clamp this securely I'm using a couple of spacers there but I want to have it held in very snug before I begin to screw it together and I'm using the long five and five eighths inch screws wherever they apply and then as my tapered part gets thinner I will transition down two screws that are slightly shorter and you can see as I get towards the end there I'm using a three inch long deck screw made by a company called deck mate there of course outdoor rated as well and here's a quick peek of what it's going to look like when I stand it up and this is the piece I'm going to put in next this is the front leg so I'm building this on my torsion box assembly table and of course I want the legs square with the surface of the table top and all of them to be flush with the surface of the table top but you can see that the seat portion itself slopes back five degrees so that's the ideal position for comfort for the seat to slope back five degrees and the back to slope back an additional ten so I want the cross brace here of the leg to be elevated about three and a half inches off of the bottom and here my daughter is using a plug cutter to cut out various sized plugs I want to fill all of the schools with plugs so that I don't have to look at the screws or the screw holes I think that will look a little bit nicer and in case you're interested I will put a link to where I bought these plug cutters from in the description and once you've drilled the hole you basically just pop them out with a screwdriver this little block here is just a template that I made so that all of my holes will be drilled in about the same spot and we'll have a little more consistency to the look and once again we're going to drill them out just a little bit to get the screws in a little bit deeper so they get a better grip on the joint my pre drilling in this case was with a half inch drill bit and that looks perfectly for a half inch plug which is what we just finished cutting for these all I need to do is put a little bit of glue around the end of the plug either push or tap the plug into place let it dry and then I can cut the excess off next I'm going to cut out the components to finish the side of the leg potion which comes up to the armrest and there's a look at the vertical support in place and the armrest portion itself and my daughter the photobomber as well and once the plugs are dry we just come back with either a flush cut saw in this case I'm using a dovetail side and probably to find my flush cuts off my we just cut the plugs off and then we sand them smooth [Music] so now it's time to build the other leg portion for this bench and one little trick that I use whenever I build benches or chairs is to always build the second side directly on top of the first this way I'm almost using the first as a template to build the second one on that way the two sides come out identical and it really prevents racking or twisting in the structure when you build it and one of my other daughters is helping us out cut some more plugs I think this project took 40 or 50 plugs something like that in order to get a good match we just usually use a scrap piece of wood of the same species to cut the plugs out of and then if you line the grain up when putting them in they usually match and blend well enough where you can barely see them and there we can see the completed leg sections for both benches you can probably see that the plug locations are evident but I wasn't really concerned about getting a color match for the wood because we're going to be staining this project and Here I am cutting out the remaining of the components for the armrest assembly for both benches Oh and before I install them I'm going to go ahead and put a chamfer on the edge of the armrest pieces themselves [Music] [Music] so all of these get installed with my deck mate deck screws and this particular countersink bit that I'm using has a 3/8 inch countersink head on the end of it which is sized perfectly for a 3/8 inch countersink plug I will put a link to this particular countersink in the description in case anybody's interested and here we have a glimpse of all four leg units with the RMS assemblies complete and the plugs are glued in and just waiting to dry [Music] so I mentioned earlier that this was going to be a storage bench so on the inside portion of the legs I'm going to route for recess that takes two passes I've got to get down to about 3/4 of an inch in depth but I'm going to route a recess in order to put a solid piece of feeder in there to make sure that the storage area is completely sealed and secured from the outside and for parts like this I could go off my plans or take measurements but it's really easiest just to drop the piece in place and trace it out and then cut on my lines since none of the cuts are really square because the bottom is flat and the top is angled back at 5 degrees I think circular saw is the quickest way to get this cut out and then I'm going to use my disc sander you could just use a belt sander or whatever you have convenient but I'm going to go ahead and round the edges over with this and a little test fit and it seems to fit pretty good so I'm going to just tack this in with some I'm using my crown stapler here and I'm going to use galvanized staples for this moving on here I've got to cut the panels that go in the front and the back basically this is the board the section that will span between the two sets of legs and so here they are all complete and I would like to use joinery that's hidden basically they hid the joinery will only be visible from the inside of the bench so I'm going to use my Craig pocket hole cutter for this and once again I'm going to glue all these joints it's an ingrained joint and glue isn't terribly strong here but if it adds even a little bit of strength I'm happy with that so I'm going to glue them all and then fasten pocket screws in as well so I can get it all laid out on my assembly table and then clamp the boards carefully in place before I put the pocket screws in and for the pocket screws it's important to use the ones that are rated for outdoor use Craig has them and there are the blue pocket screws like this I'm using a two and a half inch coarse thread and I will put a link to those in the description if you should decide to build a project like this they have a coating on them that makes them impervious to water and they'll last forever outside as with all pocket screws it's important to clamp your joint tightly together before you use the pocket screws and this will ensure that movement doesn't occur while the fastening is happening for certain applications pocket screws are incredibly strong I know a lot of woodworkers look down on them but I like to use them it really depends on the application of course I actually have a video that I am producing showing the incredible strength that these pocket screws can have so stay tuned for that in the future and there is my youngest daughter the ever-present photo bomber there are lots of ways to attach a frame like this together but nothing really beats the speed of pocket screws I shot this whole portion and pretty much left it here in real time and you can see the entire assembly of this frame only took a few minutes so after cleaning off the glue in the front and the back side I'm going to go ahead and cut another recess here in this panel in order to put a solid piece of cedar in there as well the best way to make a recess like this is to use a rabbit and bit the rabbiting visit i'm using will make a cuts that's a half an inch deep or 1/2 inch wide away from the bearing and about three and 3/8 of an inch deep going down so I'll need to make two passes to get down to the full 3/4 inch depth but it's very fast and I'll put a link to the description and actually all of the tools for all the tools that I used in this project in case anybody's interested so now I'm going to cut out those Center panels that are going to go inside of those recesses these panels are going to go in the front and the back of the bench basically between the legs and for these I thought it might be nice to have a different texture so I went ahead and bought Caesar that's rough on one side and smooth on the other so I'm going to put rough side out for this part of the assembly I think that gives a nice contrast to the look and these panels are going to add a little bit of strength and structural integrity to this piece as I'm going to go ahead and glue these in as well so the glue that I'm using for this project is Titebond 3 that is the best glue that they have that's rated for outdoor use it can get wet repeatedly and it won't affect the strength or integrity of the glue and there's a quick shot of all four panels complete for both inches here I have to put a 5 degree bevel on the top side of these because my feet are leaned back at 5 degrees but the panels themselves of course are square to the ground I'm just going to tack these together with a few pocket screws but the real strength and integrity from this joint comes from a 4x4 that I'm going to add in here in just a few minutes and here I'm going to lower it in place and make sure I keep that same three and a half inch elevation up for the front of this here I'm cutting the four-way fours I talked about to put on the inside corners of the benches the tops will need to be angled at five degrees in order to match the slope of the seat and I also glued in a little centerpiece for the panel here I thought that might look nice next I will be attaching the front to that four by four directly with some three inch deck screws and here I'm going to put in a center divider in order to separate the left side and right side of the bench tops from each other these will allow us to access the storage from either side and I want to get this piece flush with the top of the bench and flipping on its backside will allow me to install the pocket screws and now you can get a glimpse of those four by fours that I put in and how they really beefed up the structure pocket screws installed in this orientation where the weight or the load is applied from the top is this by far the strongest method to do it and these screws will hold hundreds and hundreds of pounds like that and Here I am clamping on a guide this is going to allow me to fix the back slats in the correct location with a guide in place on both sides I have the very first back slat setup down below and I've got a spacer block below that to give me the correct starting height for installing these back slats I'm using the two and a half inch pocket screws here as well and remember this is the strongest orientation in which to install these so I have cut some little spacers to give me the correct spacing between these back boards and we'll just proceed like this we'll put a spacer on each side and install the next back slack and progress upward and just like that and you can see what it looks like when it is complete so I need to build out each side just a little bit in order to have an area for the bench seat boards to rest on I cut the ends of this board at 5 degrees to match the slope of the seat and I'm going to install this also with 3 inch deck screws and we'll just repeat the exact same procedure on the other side [Music] [Music] and finally we can take a look at what the inside of the entire bench looks like fully framed out and now it is time for me to cut those seat boards out one thing that I do even though I have a full set of plans for a project is I don't go from the beginning and cut out all the parts for example with the seat board I waited until I reached that stage of the assembly and I went ahead and double-checked the measurement on it before I cut the board in this case it did match the plans but sometimes you find out it didn't and it's a good idea to wait to reach certain points in the assembly before you begin cutting now we get our first look at what a completed bench is going to look like I will be using a continuous hinge to allow me to lift up these seat sides some people call them a piano hinge it's important also that you use stainless steel additionally the kit comes with some screws but they're about half-inch long and I just don't think that's strong enough so I'm going to replace those with some longer screws these are trim screws these are also stainless steel and they're an inch and five-eighths long as opposed to shorter and that just makes her a much stronger joint one thing to note about these piano hinges is that you can cut them to whatever length you like you don't have to live with thirty inches or sixty inches or six feet or whatever they come in you can cut them to the length that you like the way I install them is to open the hinges fully I put one in the middle then I put one at each end make sure there's no problems and everything is held down tight then I go ahead and fill them up all the way across I am using a VIX bit to drill these holes it's VIX that's a self centering bit it's designed specifically for hinges it allows you to put a hole in the very center of the hinge hole those come in various sizes and I'll put a link to what I'm using in the description with the first side done I'll need to flip that board upside down and place it on top of my second side which I'll be hinging to and I've got to create a gap between the two that's about the same size as the diameter of the hinge barrel so in this case it's about an eighth of an inch and you see I just have a couple of brass shims there that I'm setting inside of that gap to give me my alignment so that when this closes it'll close open and close properly I'll do the same procedure here I will clamp everything down securely make sure my boards are lined up perfectly before I clamp of course and start by drilling hole in the middle then one on each end and then proceed to Phillips screws in all of the holes and with that done we can unclamp it and just check the fit of the hinge it looks like it works pretty nicely and so now we're going to take the seat assembly and screw the back portion of it securely to the bench I am using two and a half inch deck screws here and I will secure that all the way around we'll just do a little test make sure that the bench seat opens and closes properly and it seems to work fine and here my daughter is demonstrating how to sand I say demonstrating because she just did this for three seconds for the video then we got the Sanders out and sanded the rest of it and here I'm just going to put a little filler block in place to bring it up to the level of the seat I think it'll make the bench a little more aesthetically pleasing we did go ahead and plug all of the screw holes in the back of the bench there and then send them all flush after that [Music] and so for the very bottom of the bench I'm going to use T 111 sighting this is rated for outdoor use I think I want to put the decorative portion up in the storage container area and to cross cut it to length I am going to use this edge clamp guide these are pretty handy we just basically draw a line exactly four inches short of where I want the cut to be as my particular saw is exactly four inches from the edge of the fence to where the blade begins and cost cut it like this it's pretty handy tool I'll put a link to that in the description in case anyone's interested as well and here's a quick look at the underside of the bench before the bottom goes on I do want the bottom portion to attach and go all the way around the entire lower part of the bench so I will have to notch out three and a half inches at each corner to fit around the legs and both my daughters are helping me out here put this piece in place the decorative side like I said is going to the inside I'm going to just tack it in place with a few galvanized steel crown staples and then I'm going to go back through and all the way around I'm going to install two and a half inch deck screws this is actually going to add a lot of structural integrity to the bench itself and portions like this sheer go go fast if you have a couple of helpers my older daughter Maya there is drilling the holes and my younger daughter Tsai is putting in the screws and that really completes the construction portion of the build on these benches we'll need to do a little bit of sanding in order to get rid of all any rough edges that we might have and now we're going to put a finish on after that so personally I do like the natural cedar look these were for a client who requested a particular stain in order to match an existing project that he has but I thought I'd show you what they look like in their natural cedar State here the stain we are using is Olympic maximum stain and sealant it's a semi-transparent stain and the color is coffee after applying the stain and small portions on each part of the bench we would follow that up by wiping off the excess now once the stain was complete and dried we followed up with two coats of Vera Thayne brand a spar urethane for maximum protection and with the finish all done our project is complete thank you very much for watching [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Kings Fine Woodworking

Views: 2,508,219

Keywords: Woodworking, woodshop, woodworker, how to, DIY, make, maker, build, table saw, DeWalt, router, Grizzly tools, titebond glue, sliding compound miter saw, drill press, plug cutter, kreg, kreg pocket screws, outdoor bench, garden bench, storage bench, cedar bench, outdoor bench with storage, hidden compartment, hidden storage, pocket holes, pocket hole screws, disc sander

Id: vHU3hLDPlX8

Length: 31min 32sec (1892 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 10 2017