Garden Bench

This bench design uses some very thick lumber for making it's parts - all of the long rails and seat support members are 1½" thick, the arms and legs are 3" thick when dressed out, so we would need to start with rough lumber that is 3¼" thick at least.  Even when you can find it, lumber this thick is very expensive.  Therefore we make up the parts blanks by laminating them up from four-quarter (4/4 or approximately 1" thick) stock.

This of course takes additional time, and time is money, so if cost were the only factor involved we'd probably break even by buying the thick timbers and not have to spend the time laminating.  Unfortunately availability is also an issue.  This bench is designed to be built out of teak, but finding 3½" inch thick by six inch wide timbers of teak in the Smoky Mountains is close to impossible.  I used to be able to get white oak -- which is our next best choice for outdoor furniture -- in over-sized stock intended for fireplace mantles, but those too are no longer available.  So unless we can have timber custom cut (four years in advance) we laminate.

I like to start with the longest parts that need to be made so that I can use the clearest, straightest boards for these.  Shorter pieces can be cut from boards with blemishes by just cutting between the undesirable bits.  I also like to get all of the sections for a laminated part from the same board so that the color and graining match well.  So I have to do some picking through the lumber pile to find the pieces I need.

All rough parts are cut a bit over-size.  I use a chop saw to cut the board to length, the table saw to rip it to width then send the boards through the surface planer a few times to flatten and smooth them. When I'm all done I have two tables loaded down with stacks of parts pieces stacked by part and the pile of lumber we started with has been reduced to a collection of scraps.

I take care to keep the pieces for each part together so the colors will match up well within each part, and to keep the pattern on top of each pile so I know for sure what part each stack is to become.  When all the pieces are roughed out it is time to begin laminating the pieces into parts blanks.

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