Lutyens Bench

[Music] hi I'm norm Abram welcome to the new Yankee Workshop you've probably seen benches like this in the finest of gardening magazines now you can build one yourself and I'll show you how next right here in the new Yankee Workshop the new Yankee Workshop features the craftsmanship of norm Abram today we're in the garden of a friend and she has been kind enough to let us visit so that I can show you an English garden bench the bench was influenced by the designs of the famous English architect Sir Edwin Lutyens now this is an adaptation but legends would have recognised this decorative backrest and these curved armrests now this one is expressed in teak which legends would have approved of even though a lot of his pieces are painted white or green I did notice that the seat is not curved it's flat the backrest inclines and I see some traces of glue which could indicate that these are mortise and tenon joints glued in place the seat slats could be attached with screws and then the counter boy is plugged there's some inch and a quarter thick stock and out here at the front this vertical piece and the stretchers are 3/4 inch stock it looks great out here on the side patio I think that we must build one I hope you have a bandsaw and a good way to make mortise and tenon joints because that's what this project is all about if you'd like to build one of these benches a measure drawing is available with a materials list and you'll hear more about that before this program ends now I want to get started today making the front legs they come up straight and at the top there's a little loop that comes around I'm gonna cut those out of this blank of teak that's about three feet long and 9 inches wide I've made a poster board pattern of the decorative part at the top and I'm going to trace out one of the legs on this end of the blank and the other one on this end then I'll rough it out on the bandsaw before we cut anything a word about shop safety be sure to read understand and follow all the safety rules that come with your power tools knowing how to use your power tools properly will greatly reduce the risk of personal injury and remember this there is no more important safety rule than to wear these safety glasses now notice that I'm leaving the line it's gonna be easier to clean that up at my sanding Center now to make the long straight cut on the leg up to the curve I'm gonna use my table saw and I've set the fence for two and a quarter inches strong the width of the leg plus a little extra to sand the cut smooth I need to flip the piece over so the straightedge is against the fence and cut until I meet up with a bandsaw left off my 12-inch disc sander with this table that is perpendicular makes easy work of smoothing the curved edges now my one-inch drum sander in the drill press is perfect for smoothing up the tight inside corner look for a moment at the prototype there are three legs along the back and they're shaped a little bit like a boomerang they're all identical except that the center one is a little bit taller there is enough information in the plan to do a full size layout of the piece on some poster board here you see the back leg this is the point where the angle changes here's the curve along the back of the leg we've also laid out the curve of the seat support piece and located various intersections of stretchers and rungs so that I can lay out the mortises later I've tacked the board to a blank to cut the legs and I'm going to use an awl to just mark the critical intersections just by making a little point and of course where there's a curve we'll mark that with a pencil after I finish marking all the critical intersections I'll connect the points with a straight edge now once again I'm leaving the line will fine-tune it later well now I'm going to turn to the belt sanding section of my sanding Center which also has a table that's 90 degrees to the belt I'll use that to clean up the edges of the leg and I know what you're thinking he's going to be sanding against the grain which is going to leave marks across it once I get it where I want it I'll make one light pass in the vertical position to get rid of those marks [Applause] [Applause] well once again the drum sander takes care of any areas that I couldn't get at the sanding center the back of the bench is perhaps the most distinctive element it's made up of two pieces there are mirror images of one another and they're not bad to make I laid out the pattern on some poster board and then transferred it to my blank of wood now it's back to the bandsaw I like to make a series of cuts along the inside radius areas so that it relieves any pressure as I make the final cut now I've carefully removed one of the front legs to show you the mortises at the bottom there's a front stretcher and a side stretcher so I need one mortise here and one on the back side I also have at the top of rail and a seat support so there's a mortise on the edge and also on the back to layout the mortises this is where my full size pattern comes in real handy I take the blank that I made align it at the bottom and then using a combination square I can transfer the marks for the mortises and also flip it over and bring the lines around to mark the sides of each mortise I'm going to use this marking gauge it has a scale on it and a guide and the first setting I want is 5/16 of an inch there's a steel pin with a very sharp point on it and what that does is it scores a mark in the wood okay now the other side of that mortise is going to be at an inch and a sixteenth here's the leg from the prototype with the mortises already cut and here's my post avoid pattern which you can actually see was made from an old New Yankee Workshop cue card the mortises are laid out this Center corresponding to this one this one to this one and so forth now I'll take the pattern set it on my blank mark the center's with my awl and we'll be ready to start cutting mortises now I've made an adjustment to the fence to make the mortise the correct width [Music] now here I'm setup to make just a half inch square mortise for those armrest pieces [Music] now let's remove one of the back legs on the prototype and look at the mortises this mortise for the lower stretcher this mortise up here for this lower rail and the two small mortises for the decorative back pieces are made at 90 degrees to this face of the leg they go straight in but on this side it's a little different this lower mortise for the lower stretcher this mortise as well as the two small mortises for the armrest pieces are not 90 degrees to the face but rather cut in at an angle for the upper pieces the angle is 10 degrees for the lower stretcher the angle is 12 now my mortising machine does not have a tilting table so to cut that mortise i made a wedge and that wedge will allow me to position the piece so that the cutter will come down right along that angle that I want so as long as I slide the wedge as I cut the mortise it'll come out perfect [Music] [Music] now I'm going to switch to my wedge that will give me the 12 degree angle for the mortise of my stretcher [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] okay now that finishes the angled mortises now I'll just flip it on the side and do the 90-degree mortises the legs are connected to the decorative backrest with Tenon's Oh believe it or not it's easier to cut those Tenon's by hand using a back saw so I've mounted the leg that I've been working on with a layout complete and the first thing I'll do is make this shoulder cut the techniques for making the center leg are the same as the end legs but there are a couple differences the mortise for the cross stretcher is a little bit higher there are four extra mortises for back slats and of course this top tenon is a little bit longer now let me show you how I go about making these seat supports at the front of each support there is a tenon and that tenon is 90 degrees to the bottom of the support but at the back it's not 90 degrees it's a hundred degrees now that's a hundred degrees exactly to start forming the tenon I'm first going to make the shoulder cuts so I've set up a gauge block which will give me a 1 inch long tenon now for the angled end of my seat support I'm gonna have to swing my miter gauge to 10 degrees to make that first cut [Music] how to make the shoulder cut on the opposite side I'm going to have to swing my miter gauge to ten degrees on the other side of zero and for the miter cuts on the square end we just set it at zero [Applause] now next we'll nibble away the top and bottom of each tenon on a square end of the secrets now I'm gonna tip the blade 210 degrees and nibble away the top and bottom of the tenon on the angled end [Music] to make the cheap cuts on the Tenon's I'm using my tenoning jig now using my full-scale template I can lay out the curve cut for the seat piece and go back to the bandsaw [Music] there are two minor differences between the n seat supports and these intermediate seat supports let me show you the intermediate supports are just a little bit longer and the Tenon's are slightly smaller now once I've made those the next thing to make are these front to back stretches the tenon at the front of each stretcher is a 90 degree tenon the tenon at the back of each stretcher a hundred and two degrees now let's take a look at the front pieces if I take this leg off you can see that there's a tenon on the end of the seat support and the stretcher they're the same on both ends now in the center there is a mortise in the stretcher as well as a corresponding mortise in the seat support that receives the Tenon's from this short upright piece the only difference between the top and bottom front pieces is that the upper piece has a mortise for the intermediate seat support there's one more thing I want to show you and that's that the short vertical piece also has a mortise to receive the tenon from the short stretcher the horizontal piece is at the back of the bench do not run all the way through they intersect the center leg the stretcher at the bottom has a tenon on each end the seat support has a tenon on each end plus a mortise for the intermediate seat support and also a mortise down through the top to receive the tenon from this upright which also has mortises up the edge to receive these back slats and a tenon at the top all these mortises and Tenon's are made with the same methods I've already showed you oh good morning I want to get started today by making the last of the mortises and they're all in the decorative back piece there are four little mortises for the armrest rungs there's a mortise to pick up the back leg there's another one over here which will pick up this vertical piece and this back slat and there's another one at the very top for the center post let me show you how I make those because the backrest tips back at 10 degrees the mortises will have to be angled so I've made a block with a 10 degree slope to it and I'm going to use a half-inch Brad point bit that I'll just bring up against the block which will set the angle square it up by eye and drill a hole about five-eighths of an inch deep now just square it up with a chisel I've just adjusted my router to make the three remaining mortises the router is set up with a 3/8 inch rabbeting bit and that will remove some of the material but not all of it [Applause] [Music] [Applause] now where the mortises are three quarters of an inch wide have to make an adjustment to the router for a second pass [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] now using a drill with a piece of tape to give me the depth of the mortise I'll remove some more material well now just some sharp chisels to remove the rest of the material let's look at the slats all the slats have the same cross-section they're 1 inch square with rounded corners the armrests slats have tenants that are 90 degrees at the front end and at the back they're cut at 10 degrees which is the slope of the backrest all the slats on the backrest have 90 degree Tenon's with the following exceptions this one has a standard tenant on one end but an extended tenon to fit into the mortise of the decorative backrest this one again has a standard tenant on this end but at this end there is no tenon it's just fitted to the curve and I'll secure it out with a screw this one has a long enough slope that I can secure it with a biscuit and lastly this one again is cut to the curve and will secure it with a screw [Music] before I do any assembly I want to round over some sharp edges on the front legs and on the decorative backrest [Music] working in a well-ventilated area I want to clean all the joints before I glue them up using acetone and that will remove any of the natural oil in the wood I'm using a one part waterproof glue applying it both to the tenon and the mortise making sure that I evenly cover all global surfaces now when you get the back of the bench all blown apart like this you can see that there are too many pieces to try to glue everything all at once so I'm just going to start with the bottom stretchers and rails here's that slat that's secured with a biscuit well now it's time for the seat slats no glue here just screws now each of these counter boys for the screws will be filled with a teak plug and the excess trimmed off with a chisel now that the seat slats are installed and I have the bench turned up on its back I'm gonna remove the front assembly which was never glued now with glue on all the Tenon's including the ones on the armrest slats we can clamp it all together well now we're getting down towards the end this is one of the last two slats and if you remember this one is going to be secured with a screw all right finally the end now we'll let it sit here and dry and then we'll start looking for a place to set it in the garden well I wouldn't dream of putting any kind of finish on this beautiful teak mother nature will take care of that in time it'll turn a lovely silvery gray [Music] you

Channel: Todd Schoolcraft

Views: 8,687

Rating: 4.9411764 out of 5

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Id: 4ddwy9tB-6M

Length: 24min 33sec (1473 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 09 2018