Garden Bench

Before installing the seat slats I routed the upper corners to soften them and Tim sanded them for me.  Then we gathered up some cut-offs from these benches and made screw hole plugs.

This discussion of screw hole plugs uses photographs of a previous project and may not look anything like the current project, but the process is exactly the same.  Once everything is glued and screwed together, it's time to make some screw hole plugs to hide the screws.  Oh, sure, we can buy commercially made plugs but making them ourselves offers several advantages.  One is that we can make the plugs from scraps of the same wood used to build the piece of furniture, thereby achieving a better color match than is possible with commercially produced plugs.  Another is that most commercial plugs are "End Grain" plugs, meaning that the grain runs top to bottom not side to side.  Even if you search through a large box of plugs for proper colors, the end grain of the plug will not blend with the face grain of the surface you're plugging.  This can be useful for decorative effects, but if you want the screw holes to disappear, it won't happen with end grain plugs, especially if you plan to apply a stain.  In the photo, the face grain plugs are on the left, the end grain plugs on the right.  See the difference?  End grain plugs are great if you want to use them as a decorative accent, but face grain is the way to go if you want to hide them.

After using a special plug cutter to bore rings part way through a piece of scrap wood, we place masking tape over the top and press it down firmly so it sticks well, especially to the ends of the plugs.

Then we use a band saw to cut the bottom part -- the solid part -- of the board away from the plugs, leaving the plugs just sort of hanging in their holes from the masking tape.

Peel the tape away from the board and the plugs pop right out of the holes, but remain stuck to the masking tape making them easy to keep track of and work with.

As mentioned before, face grain plugs can be grain matched to their surroundings making them almost invisible.  Once this plug it trimmed flush and sanded, you'll have to look hard to find it.

Using a small brush we apply glue to the inside of each screw hole, then tap a plug unto the hole.  These plugs are tapered, and have a chamfer on the narrow end so they insert easily, tap in smoothly, and yet seal up tight at the surface.  They are far superior to commercially bought plugs.

Finally we trim the screw hole plugs with a flush cut saw and sand them smooth with a sanding block.

OK, back to the current project...

Now that we have the plugs made up we clamp a straight edge across one end of the bench and lay the slats onto the seat supports, snugging one end of the slats to the straight edge to be sure they're lined up evenly.  I even out the spacing between the slats by eye and clamp them in place.

In this photo I have the seat slats installed on one bench, another just came out of the clamps from the frame assembly step and the third bench is in parts on a rolling cart ready to be glued and clamped.  Once the glue on the screw hole plugs is dry so they can be trimmed I'll roll that first bench (on the right) into the finishing room (double glass doors in the background) so it can be oiled while I'm assembling the third bench.

To attach the seat slats we use a counter bore bit to drill two-step holes in the slats, we have a pilot hole for the screw that goes all the way through the slat and partly into the support beneath and a larger hole that goes only part way through where the screw head will sit.  In this photo I've just started the screws into their holes enough to keep the slats in place.  When all the holes are drilled I'll swap out the counter bore bit for a screw driver tip and use the drill to seat the screws tightly in their holes.  Driving long screws into white oak by hand is a tough chore!

We use an artists brush (not a good one) to apply glue to the inside of the counter bore hole, then tap the screw hole plugs into the hole until they seat against the screw head.  After the glue dries a bit we'll use a flush-cut saw to trim off the excess plug and sand the plug smooth with the surface around it

We'll finish up the construction by checking the whole bench over carefully, looking for anything we might have missed during construction, then it's on to the finishing stage.

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