How to Build an Oak Garden Bench

for a long time now my wife has wanted a simple bench for the garden so this week i made it [Music] [Music] we've got this area next to the garage that we plan to spruce up very soon with a path and a seating area that will have a simple bench in the corner so in preparation i've decided today to make the bench i used some boards and some old timber just to do a mock-up to see what it would look like and how big i need to make it [Music] i've decided i'm going to make this bench out of one sleeper and after looking at the options and colours i decided to go for an oak sleeper after pain i sought through the small stack my local builder jars have of oak sleepers and pull out the most suitable one just picking one of these up is no mean feat they're so heavy compared to soft wood i decided to cut it down to make it easier to get into the car this is where cordless circular saws come in really useful as long as you remember to take them with you so [Music] [Music] oak sleepers will naturally come with some splits and some live or waney edges as well that i need to plan for and make sure that they're not too prominent on this piece as well because it's been sitting in the yard for so long i also have some sort of water staining the first thing i need to do is to cut everything to length so being optimistic i thought i'd just try and see if i could do that on the miter saw as soon as i laid it down my miter saw bench almost collapsed from the weight and the blade is nowhere near big enough to even get halfway through so on to plan b use my circular saw from both sides [Music] as soon as i made the cut it was clear it wasn't vertical although the blade is at 90 degrees to the base plate i've already checked that cutting this way around meant only a small section of the base plate is actually resting on the wood which leads to a lack of stability so no surprise after the second cut i've got two cuts that just don't line up so on to plan c i spin the piece around so the majority of the base plate is resting on the oak what i don't realize though when i start the cut is the motor of the circular saw is getting snagged on the quick clamp after making the two cuts it's better but it's still a long way from being perfect so on to plan d i change to my big corded saw that i've had forever and make the deepest cut i possibly can just following the line that i've put on the surface and then finish off by using a handsaw tight up against the edge of the piece i want to keep this works out a lot better and any small steps from the two cuts can be removed with a plane so i carry on and cut all the members this way which did the job [Music] so [Music] so that's the three main members cut to length and on any other project cutting things to length is normally the easy bet and takes about 10 minutes but i must say with these members being so big and not being able to use a mitre saw and even a circular saw doesn't go all the way through it was a little bit more of a challenge and the fact that oak is harder so everything you do with oak is harder as well now if i was using these for let's say a raised bed in the garden i'd probably use a chainsaw but i want these to be nice accurate 90 degree corners and this to be a nice right angle as well because i'm now going to insert this partially into the top of the bench as well so i couldn't really use a chainsaw because that would just give me a really rough finish and it wouldn't necessarily be 90 degrees in any particular direction so what i'm going to do now is now notch out the underside of the seat so i can actually insert the legs probably a quarter of the way down the depth of the seat but at the moment i don't really know where this is supposed to go it's not going to look right at the end and if i put them too far into the middle that's not going to look like right anyway so it's going to be around about here so i think what i'm going to do is i'm going to get some paper draw this to scale do a few versions and then probably pick the one that looks the best [Music] you [Music] so [Music] to get a tight fit i leave the cuts with the saw short then offer up the leg and mark it using a stanley knife this oak is so dense i can't do my normal trick of using the stanley knife to any sort of depth so i enlarge this line with a chisel [Music] as well as gluing in these legs i'll be screwing them in from the top as well and hiding the head of the screw with a dowel [Music] this oak dowel that i've bought is 21 millimeters in diameter and the nearest force on a bit i have is 20 millimeters so i need to work out the best way of making it fit [Music] using the plane worked but gave me lots of straight edges which i wasn't really happy with but then i remember i have my sander which doesn't come out that much but is a great piece of kit so i want to remove these stains so i start by using my trend palm sander i found this to be a great sander for finishing pieces of work but it's just not man enough against this oak sand in hardwood produces extremely fine dust which can be harmful to your lungs so having the right dust collection and wearing a mask is really important if you're planning to do this type of work in a confined space [Music] foreign you most jobs you can do with an impact driver you can also do with a drill but screw in like this into dense oak i must say an impact driver does really well i add some additional glue to the visible joints and then force in some oak sawdust just to hide them [Music] so [Music] [Music] so that's the bench finished and i need to move it to its new home although its new home has recently changed but i'll explain all that in a minute what i've only just realized is although i chopped this up in the timber yard to make it lighter to move around i've just spent the last day connecting it all back together so now it's really heavy i really enjoyed working with this oak and when my wife saw it she immediately wanted it in the kitchen rather than the garden so while i wait for that project to come around this is its new temporary home for the next few weeks so there we are all fully finished and i must say i think this has come out pretty good actually and it probably doesn't deserve to be in the garden but once i sort that garden area out it will definitely one day be out there i'm really pleased by the way these dowels came out they're really really flush and the carved logo as well although i didn't show you that in the video it's really a video on its own and if enough of you asked for it i might do a video showing you how i did that it's really just hand carving using a router but there is an extra element in there which i didn't really show you so if you ask for that i might do that in the future anyway i hope you enjoyed this video if you have please check out the other ones on the channel and please subscribe and please go and have a look at our patreon page where you can support us over there and see extra material and extra videos every week so until next week quite pleased with this [Music] you

Channel: Proper DIY

Views: 120,237

Keywords: outdoor furniture, garden bench build, garden bench diy, outdoor furniture diy, garden sleeper, garden bench from sleepers, bench from sleepers, oak sleeper, oak bench diy, oak sleeper bench

Id: SXt9vFUA7ng

Length: 18min 1sec (1081 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 25 2022