DIY project: Oak beam garden furniture. Part 1. Bench

few month ago we decided to upgrade our garden furniture. We were looking for a wooden set but all these sets from B&Q and other places were quite flimsy and boring. That's when I found websites offering oak beam furniture. Oak beam looked just about right but priced from £1500 to £3000 for a 6ft set (a table and two benches) which was a bit above our budget. That's when I had a brilliant idea to build garden furniture myself. After brief calculation I figured out that buying wood and all tools it would cost me a fraction of asking price. What can go wrong?

So, how to build an oak beam garden bench?

Materials 

First, you need some timber. For a 1.8m (6ft) set you will need:

8x 2400x100x100 green oak beams
6x 2400x220x100 untreated oak sleepers

I ordered from Brigstock sawmill, they deliver nationwide, but these guys are funny - it took them 4 attempts do deliver right stuff to me (and they are about 100 miles away). I don't know how they make money. If you have an option to go and choose your timber - do it, because the better quality of timber you get, the less you have to work with your planer to make it straight.

Caution. oak is heavy. really heavy. one 2400x100x100 oak beam is around 30 kg

also you need special timber screws. Two lengths:
6.3. x 65mm Rapier StarLok Heavy Duty Landscape Timber Screws
6.3. x 150mm Rapier StarLok Heavy Duty Landscape Timber Screw
they come in boxes of 50. For one bench you will need 10x150mm screws and 16x65mm screws. For a table you'll need 16x150mm screws and 24x65mm (or 32x65mm) screws. Just get two boxes of each, should be enough, and quickfast price is a bargain.

To protect your furniture you'll need to oil it. Liberon Pure Tung Oil is recommended to treat outdoor oak. Other kinds of oil (danish etc) can cause darkening. It's recommended to re-oil every year. If you want that silver colour and rustic look, just leave it next summer untreated, but I think it's a good idea to treat it at least once.


Tools

1. Compound mitre saw that can cut through 100mm of timber. usually they only do about 60mm, so you need a big one, with 315mm blade. After some googling I found a reasonably priced (£250) saw which can do that: Ryobi EMS-2431SC 315mm
You might be able to get away with a handheld one with a smaller blade and do two cuts from two sides but this one will give you clean good cut in just one go. Please note that this one is quite powerful - it trips my garage fuse occasionally at start up.

2. Planer. I've got this model: Bosch PHO 20-82 Planer

3. Corded drill. this draper model proved to be good value for money (you need power to drive these timber screws so cordless might not cope) : Draper 76215 230-Volt 810-Watt Hammer Drill

4. Two of these would be very helpful: I've got mine cheap at Focus closedown sale.

5. Chisel. I settled on Draper brand again: Draper Expert 89726 4-Piece Soft-Grip Chisel Set

6. Wooden mallet

7.Silverline 245025 300 mm Engineer's Square


Building the bench

this is my timber:

left four are sleepers for the table I planed earlier. Once you received your timber inspect it. Two sleepers on the right look OK from this angle, but further down one side is bark 100% of width on both, quite deep into the sleeper, so I had to ask for replacement.

first plane it, then cut to size. Pay attention when you cut - you might not have a second chance. Always verify that blade is perpendicular (as per user manual) before first use (I'd say first use of the day) and always put the blade down without turning it on to verify the line for every cut.

assemble bench top, face up. If there are gaps between beams, plane sides to make them fit better. The more you plane, the more straight your beam is, the better they fit:

Timber screws do not require pre-drilling, but I think it's a good idea to pre-drill a bit to give it right direction

Any help is appreciated:

Flip your bench face down and put two screws on each side (10mm and 11mm from an edge), then turn it face up again and plane to make all beams level

To attach legs and fix all three beams together I decided to do half lap joint. But I'm lazy, so ended up with a half of half lap joint. Cut every 10mm-15mm to required depth and then finish it with a chisel.

turn bench over and screw this using 150mm timber screws:

Now attach legs using 65mm screws. Pre-drill to 20-30mm to give them direction and avoid surprised. Here you can see I made a mistake by using only two screws. Two screws proved not to be enough.

 I recommend to use four screws. Because there is no pre-drilling, always use clamps when driving screws in.

 Now you can turn it over. You might need some help as the bench will weight around 80kg.

Done!

One last thing to do is to oil it.

Next Saturday I plan to put these sleepers you can see on the two top photos to use and build an oak garden table.
to be continued...