When is a bench not a bench??

**cultana** · 19th December 2009, 11:52 PM

When is a bench not a bench?? When that person, whose name shall not be spoken, says otherwise.

Yes I have lost my new quick and dirty bench, well part lost. I know does not make sense yet

Firstly I had decided to replace my old and somewhat battered bench/desk I used to hold the mitre saw, little bench saw and also do assembly and glue ups etc on.
It was one of those nice quick flat pack computer desks. Due to a little flooding one January the desk was put out to pasture and ended up being used as a little handy bench. The chipboard sides/legs suffered from water damage and over time have slowly fretted away on the ends hence lost a bit of stability

Now I normally have a reasonable collection of old pallets or stripped down pallets. These I use in my feed shed to stack hay on and the pallets break occasionally. Hence the stock of pallets and pallet timbers. Pallets don’t like 800Kg bales being dropped on them.

Well the quick and dirty pallet bench:
I had one 6m piece of opine, 120mm x 35mm x 6m left over form building a stable many moons ago so that was to be part of the top frame. It had a few defects in it, slight curve, warped and a couple of other issue that made it unusable for building work.

Initially I was going to make the base out of various pieces of pine for pallets and the top fro the old desk and also part of one side. They were still flat enough to be functional.

Well passed the timbers through the thicknesser and got them all to size. Most of the pallet timbers had so much resin in them it clogged up the rollers with dust and fine shavings.
Actually the timbers came out looking great compared to their original form.
I decided to drop the idea of using the old desk for the top and went for more pallets timbers. Cleaned and sized them as well as cutting a rebate on each so they interlocked when fixed on the frame.

Picture 1 - give you and idea of the frame. I have laid out some of the top boards as well. Next to it is the old desk, the gray thing.
Attachment 124617

Picture 2 - I just laid out all the top boards to see how flat they were not. Well as flat as any pallet timber will ever get I suppose.
I was going to just glue them to the frame but decide to only use zinc coated screws and no glue. This would permit replacing boards if and when they got damaged beyond usefulness.
Attachment 124618

Picture 3 – The whole thing finished and painted. This shows the glue and dowel joins for each leg and bottom runners. I was going to be a real Neanderthal and just use tek screws to make the frame. But change of heart and every this is glued and dowelled.
Attachment 124619

Picture 4 – This is where every thing came apart. No more full time bench.
Attachment 124620

I painted the frame in some old polyurethane I had, though the legs don’t appear to be painted they are.
With the top I painted each board separately.
The boards had 3 coats. First one was thinned down, 2/3 paint 1/3 thinners. This allowed to paint t penetrate the timber. Second coat was roughly 15% thinned. Final coat not thinned.

After that it was rubbed over with a mix of wax and oil mix and then buffed.

At this point a voice was head “It's got a really lovely finish on the top, that will do for the patio when we need extra bench space there!”
After a few moments, “aren’t you going to make shelves and cupboards for it? They would be more useful, also doors for the cupboards, keep the dust and dirt out, you know how dusty it gets there, [patio]”.
Then, “The centre leg is not in the middle, you should have had that in the middle, it looks stupid that way”.

“It’s a bench for in here, the shed. It is full of old nail holes!!!!!”
Got no where with that, beyond, “well don’t damage it when you use it or scratch the surface”.

So new bench for patio on the way.

Back to bench, I have ordered a nice pieces of 1.5 x 600 x 1800mm thick cal steel to go over the top and then a pieces of masonite to cover the steel.
The steel is there to help with a flat surface and also so I don’t damage the top surface as instructed by accidently putting and extra drill hole or three in it. GROAN!

Seriously this just doesn’t not look suitable to stick in a patio, Right!

**artme** · 20th December 2009, 07:24 AM

Most defiantly a workbench. What do SWMBOS know???

**Scally** · 20th December 2009, 07:38 AM

That is the problem with doing too good of a job.

Make sure you bolt a drop saw to the top before someone pinches the next one for a hall table.

**tea lady** · 20th December 2009, 10:16 AM

I left mine all rough sawn on the legs so I wouldn't be tempted to move it inside instead.

That's my excuse anyway. Looks real good Caltana.

**Christos** · 24th December 2009, 01:18 AM

I am not sure how you are going to win that discussion(arg......ment) with the other half. Well actually I do have a way but this is an open forum.

I will say that this is nice idea in using old pallet wood. I like it.

**cultana** · 28th December 2009, 09:34 PM

New approach:

When is a bench not a bench, is a bench, seems to be the new thing..

Problem resolved I hope..

I unpacked my new lathe copy tool on the new/her bench and naturally left some nasty grease marks..

This cause a tad bit of negativity from some specific unnamed quarter. Remarks censored.

Well after the 'previous owner' of my bench left I wiped the grease marks off. All cleaned off naturally due to surface finish. Now shelf going on for small bench and mitre saws and thicknesser as well as a second shelf for lathe copy tool. Also bench move to back of shed out of harms, (SWMBO’s), way...

I do, apparently; have to make a special patio bench as per the official directions at some stage/point of time, before Christmas were the words, but no year specified. (Can I play on lack of specified year??)

Somehow I feel I still loose this one again..

PS:
Christos
Pallet timber is quite interesting as collectively it is a combination of pine, hardwoods various and other odd types. There are lots of interesting grain patterns and nice sub textures/colours as well. Some pine has a high resin content and gums up the thicknesser rollers.
Just look out for all the nails not to mention the hidden ones.

I have one bench made of some odd timber. It is white and that is whiter than I have seen any pine, nice grain and has a soapy feel. For on a size comparison to pine it is a lot lighter and softer as well. Even in a rough pallet state the timber has a soft feel. Though as a bench top it seems to tolerate more bangs, bumps etc vs pine, ie does not dent easily.

**Christos** · 29th December 2009, 09:50 PM

I like the idea of getting wood from pallets. I have a friend that brings some my way after his company had finished with them. I can not complain but he sometimes brings that ones that have the support wood of 10mm think. So after you thickness this you have made paper.

**cultana** · 30th December 2009, 11:19 PM

You are lucky to get it delivered. I have to go find the things. In winter they are scarce. I think some people use them for fire wood. Not too sure how the pine will go in any fire place besides very HOT!

**Ben from Vic.** · 31st December 2009, 04:21 PM

My bench got a few envious "that would look good...." or "i could use..." comments, unfortunately it was to heavy to move.

**missionaryman** · 1st January 2010, 11:55 PM

I had a similar problem when I made this one from old recycled flooring and some scrap F17 Ash:

You would have thought I learned my lesson but then I went and built this one from some more old flooring & framing:

Needless to say I now have a bench made from the nastiest ugliest most uneven crap I could pull out of the pallet bin

**cultana** · 2nd January 2010, 12:54 AM

Very nice benches..
So did you loose them or find a way to retain them in your possession?

I grabbed some nice maranti planks form big timber pallets, but someone else noticed how well they cleaned up... Mistake cleaning them up before direct use.

I was going to use them on a bench carcass.. Seems some are now destined for other fields of use.

In many ways it is strange how scrap timber always comes up much better than stuff direct off the shelf and only when you want to us it for your own purpose.

Face it, SWMBO will always win..

**Christos** · 3rd January 2010, 11:00 AM

I have no SWMBO, so I am a man that is free. Well almost free. There is a SWMBO but does not tell me what to do. So you could say SWMBO Only If She Says Something.

**missionaryman** · 5th January 2010, 08:02 AM

Originally Posted by cultana

Very nice benches..
So did you loose them or find a way to retain them in your possession?

I grabbed some nice maranti planks form big timber pallets, but someone else noticed how well they cleaned up... Mistake cleaning them up before direct use.

I was going to use them on a bench carcass.. Seems some are now destined for other fields of use.

In many ways it is strange how scrap timber always comes up much better than stuff direct off the shelf and only when you want to us it for your own purpose.

Face it, SWMBO will always win..

I ended up selling them as work benches and promising to do something more important with the money (like buying more tools

)

I've often found the recycled stuff ends up looking far better than newly purchased material and it's also way more stable. The main reason is that it's old growth larger trees and it's really well air seasoned over time rather than the new stuff which is dried in the kiln then recovered in the humidifying booth then kiln dried again. It works on paper but not when you're using it in practise.

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