Thread: Outdoor Bench Seats - Single vs batch

So all of the Blackbutt timber for this build was left-over 35mm x 120mm decking boards - I had just enough, with about 1 lm to spare.

First step - mark out and break-down the stock into rough chunks. Did this with a jigsaw as I don't like using a CSMS due to dust and I don't have it permanently set-up.

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Then planed 2 edges on all pieces, then thicknessed oversize. Left to sit for a day, then planed again and thicknessed to final size. The slats I ripped down on the band-saw after dressing to get rid of 8mm instead of creating more chips with the thicknesser - also saved some time I think (35mm to 23mm final thickness)

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Then pieces all marked and cut to final length on table saw.

Legs were carefully planed, dressed and grain aligned for easy planing before gluing with polyurethane glue (recommended for blackbutt, but more on this later!). This was reasonably time-consuming I found.

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The leg laminations were made from the 120mm boards ripped in half for good colour and grain match and to maximise yield, but I wasn't hugely happy with the proportions - the legs seemed too slim compared with the slats, aprons and in proportion to the table.

After gluing the legs, planing clean and planing/dressing square I left them to sit for a couple of days while working on the slats and breadboards for the tops.

Over this period we had a super hot, low humidity (nearly zero) couple of days, followed by a very, very, humid couple of days. When inspecting the previously seamless legs, I found that some had started to show gaps! Perhaps I should have sealed the end grain previously, and it was the absolutely most severe swing in humidity you could imagine, but I didn't feel confident the legs would stay together long-term outdoors.

This was during the hot-humid days - evaporative cooling does absolutely nothing!

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So I decided to scrap these legs (I'll rip them in half and use the timber for something else, like chopping boards or something), which was frustrating, and I didn't have any more timber, nor did I want to try laminated legs again - particularly with Blackbutt which is naturally oily and difficult to glue (which is why it's so durable outdoors I guess!) and also moves quite a lot (twice the movement compared with Spotted Gum etc).

This ended up being a blessing in disguise...

Dom,

I know there's more to come on this build, but, for what its worth up front, the table looks great, and really goes with the aesthetic of your veranda/patio.

I am quite jealous of your ease of access to such quantity of quality Eucalypt timber. Blackbutt may be fairly easy to come across in Aus, but it would be among the finest exterior furniture species if it were available here in the US, which I can assure you it is not, much to my chagrin.

Look forward to seeing the rest of your process.

Cheers,
Luke

I took a trip to a local recycled timber yard / mill in search of some Blackbutt stock I could use for the legs.

Not only did I find some perfect Blackbutt in approximately 70mm x 85mm, that was salvaged from an old building, which also happened to be perfectly rift-sawn, I also had an overwhelmingly positive experience that left me super energised and fulfilled.

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Nicely rift-sawn = straight grain on every face and stable - perfect for legs IMO.

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The sawmill / recycled timber yard owner listened to what I needed, showed me through his stacks, finding exactly what I needed, gave me some awesome info and history on all things wood-related in his yard and cut the stock down to rough length to make transporting it easier. I didn't even care what the price was, but it was very reasonable. I just really enjoyed the whole interaction and connecting with a real person, who was passionate about his business and product as well as extremely knowledgeable. I think it will be a very sad day indeed when we get what a lot of us think we want - online only sales or big-box stores, cheapest price, and no soul. This experience reminded me there is a huge "value" in the social interaction, knowledge sharing, and overall experience in dealing with an owner-operator and passionate person, not just an employee there to earn a wage, or a computer checkout basket. I would have been happy to pay significantly more then the market-rate, and still felt I got an overall great value product / experience package. Sorry rant over .

Given my new larger stock I up-sized the proportions of the legs a little so that I got what I believe to be better whole-number ratios between legs, aprons and slats.

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Also, working with solid wood was much quicker, more enjoyable and provided a better outcome than laminating legs. Putting aside the wasted time laminating, this was a much better option and will be my first choice in future - solid legs where-ever possible and definitely for outdoor structures.

Couple more to come.

Cheers,

Dom

I made the tops first, while the leg stock was allowed to rest and move if it needed to move after planing, dressing and ripping, and prior to final planing and glue-up (this was before the failure and obtaining solid leg stock).

Here is where I found I had significant efficiencies in batching out the slats and breadboards. First off, planing, ripping and thicknessing the stock was faster per piece due to single setup of the thicknesser and bandsaw etc, as well as just getting into a rhythm.

I cut the breadboards first. Again, some efficiencies gained here. Setup the table saw mitre gauge stops once to the correct length and quickly cut all breadboards. Then one setup for the mortiser and quickly cut all of the mortises. Marking out was sped up, as was drilling holes for the pegs. The only savings I could have made here was to go deeper on the mortises or shorter on the tenons to avoid having to clean out the bottoms of the mortises by hand with a mortise chisel.

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Cutting the tenons on the slats was also made more efficient due to only setting the band-saw up once to cut all of the cheeks (which takes a little finessing to get a tight fit straight off the saw - I use a test piece into a test mortise) and I setup the table-saw to cut the shoulders (normally do with hand saw) which really sped things up when batching out 18 tenons. I used the band saw to cut the tenons down to width and a hand saw to cut the short shoulders.

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On the breadboard ends. The choice to add bread-boards adds a significant amount of time to the build (approx. 25% more overall build time) - adding 18 tenons / mortises, 18 dowels to make and holes to drill / fit.

These were then first oiled and then assembled. Again, time savings were made with oiling as there is a little time wasted getting things cleaned up.

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On a side-note. Dowels take a stupid amount of time and effort to make - rive, trim, sharpen end, bash through dowel plate etc. Nearly 3 hours just to make all the dowels - almost 10% of total build time!!

Cheers,

Dom

Legs were straightforward. 2 Sides square on planer, then cut down to rough size on the bandsaw to save time and mess through the thicknesser.

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I cut all of the haunched apron tenons using the band-saw for the cheeks, table saw for large shoulders, hand saw for haunch and short shoulders. Went quite quick and again, savings to be made by running a batch. Was rushing and didn't stop to take photos. You can see some in the photo next to the leg blanks. The most time consuming part was actually cutting the centre cross-brace dovetail joints - cut these by hand with a hand saw and then used a router plane and chisels to finish - bit of mucking around and although I got a lot faster by number 3, I could have saved a lot of time by using Domino's or similar (really should use the DF500 again one day!). Anyone notice anything on the legs that could be trouble?

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Cut all of the mortises on the chisel mortiser (haunches with hand saw and chisel).

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The deep gum veins I was worried about gave me grief on one leg;

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I scraped away some loose gum and glued it back together - seems to have glued up nice and strong so fingers crossed. It didn't split when driving in the tenons so should be fine I hope .

Legs hand planed and oiled ready to go. I didn't use a sander at all in this build. Just hand planes / card scraper.

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The tenons on the aprons I cut a little thick, on purpose, and spend a little time hand-tuning with the block rabbet plane to get a very nice tight fit - so much so that a dry assembly allowed me to move the assembly around and sit on it etc with nothing moving. I drill all of the legs first for the dowels, then do a dry-assembly with the aprons, use the brad-point bit to mark the centres, remove and drill the tenon holes offset to provide a tensioned joint when the dowel is hammered in during glue up.

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I test fit the joinery one last time and adjusted the hole offset for a couple that had a little too much overlap.

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Didn't get a photo of glue up, but I love gluing up draw-bored joints. No need for clamps, just hammer the tenon in most of the way and hammering through the dowel will pull the joint nice and tight. Flush cut saw to trim the dowels and chisel to finish (where required).

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Then more time than expected making some wooden cleats to hold the top in place as well as corner braces (which I don't think are really required, there wasn't any flex or movement without them, but better safe/proper than sorry/shortcut I guess).

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Then it was time for a rest;

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And that's it.

In summary

Total time to build the three bench seats was around 38 hours (taking out the wasted time on the laminated legs). So about 13 hours per bench vs 20-22 for the single / first time. Part of that was from not having to think as much the second time around, but a lot was due to efficiencies from batching out processes and reducing both machine setup time and time spent head-scratching deciding what to do next etc.

The key time-wasters were - Dowels, dovetail cross braces and laminating legs if solid is an option. Choosing to use breadboards and drawbored joints also added significant time to an otherwise simple/quick project. I feel that planing / scraping saved a lot of time over sanding.


Also, while I was focused on trying not to take too long to build these and was interested to see which process take me a disproportionate amount of time etc, I realised that working quickly is a skill in itself; learning to maintain focus on getting each task done quickly and not allowing yourself to fall into the meditative, slower-state of doing things like taking a bit longer to plane a surface or finesse a tenon, or oil and rub-back components slower etc. Now, I know that my time to build these is probably very slow by many experienced woodworkers standards, but that wasn't the point. The bench-marking was for me, to educate myself on what takes time, where time can be saved, cutting away needless processes or making better decisions on which process add overall value for future projects etc (I kept a bit of a time-log for each process); not as a comparison with others.

Thanks for reading/viewing. I'm still pretty new to this (2 years or so) and so this post is for my benefit / as a keep-sake, more than anything else; although hopefully other new-comers will find something beneficial.

Cheers,

Dom

That was a very nice build and write up Dom. The benches look like four mini dining tables, if only the customers knew that they pretty much take the same amount of time to build as the dining table

Were you building these late in January? I recall we had a couple of brutal dry 42°C days followed by a few humid days which royally screwed around a couple of my own projects turning flat things into potato chips!

Thanks for taking the time to document your processes. It's a simple, clean design. I think it suits the table really well.

cheers,

ajw

Originally Posted by Kuffy

That was a very nice build and write up Dom. The benches look like four mini dining tables, if only the customers knew that they pretty much take the same amount of time to build as the dining table

Were you building these late in January? I recall we had a couple of brutal dry 42°C days followed by a few humid days which royally screwed around a couple of my own projects turning flat things into potato chips!

Thanks Kuffy. Yeah I made the tops and glued up the legs in Jan just before that hot dry - hot humid period. Then built a pergola and a couple other things before returning to these.

This was Bunnings the day after that three day spell haha. I figured I wouldn't be alone. If I had have sealed the end grain I think the legs would have been ok, but that huge 80-90% swing in humidity over a couple of daya, with timber unsealed, was beyond them.

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Cheers, Dom

Originally Posted by ajw

Thanks for taking the time to document your processes. It's a simple, clean design. I think it suits the table really well.

cheers,

ajw

Thank you.

Oh, and Kuffy, you're right. I was thinking the same thing when making the seats - 4x legs, 4 x aprons, 14 pairs of M&T, 14 dowels, same fitting process etc. Only thing different about a table is slightly larger timber, more slats, and a few more minor joints. I understand why a lot of professionals don't build seats or chairs for their tables, when clients wouldn't understand the amount of time that goes into each.

Cheers, Dom

Great write-up, thanks.

Great job Dom, and yes, thanks for the write up.

Great thread Dom, a good read.
I like how you built staying with quality construction first and not taking any easy ways out and timing it was based on that .
I liked your Planing and scraping comment .

I saw pegs from the straightest grained off cuts if possible. A lot of the time anything with the grain running out doesn't survive the doweling plate.
I would like to to try and machine my own with the spindle moulder. The edge of a 20mm board will give two, staked two high, of most common sizes I need . If it works I'll be in pegs for a year or two before needing more I hope.

Rob