JayStPeter
Member
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2007
- Messages
- 399
Last year, my mother asked me to make her an "asian style" garden bench. She wanted to put it in her garden and sit facing either the garden or the water. I decided to make it my Christmas project for the year.
For the most part, this project was a design exercise. I needed something that I could build relatively quickly since I got a late start and needed to finish by Christmas. This was the first project I designed using the computer. As usual, I started by flipping through some books and magazines. I found a number of cabinets that inspired the leg and top design. It took a while to find something to make the "floating top", but I found inspiration for the trellis top supports in the "Custom Furniture Sourcebook". After my standard sketches, I transferred the design into Sketchup and used that to try some different concepts. Here's one of the last concept drawings. Notice the side has some extra parts that didn't make the final design. I liked the concept and would likely build those in if I built another, but they were left out to keep the project "on time".
Once the design was finalized, I sourced some Saepele from a local supplier. Most of the bench is 5/4 with 12/4 for the legs.
I used the following Festools in building the project: ETS150/5, ATF55, MFT, OF1400, TDK. I also used my tablesaw, mortiser, jointer, planer, and bandsaw. The ETS was the hero of the project.
I started with the base. To prep the lumber I start with the ATF55 to size down the rough lumber. It then goes through the jointer, planer, and tablesaw to produce the blanks. Since I was rushed, I used my mortiser and tablesaw for the base joinery. My bandsaw was employed to taper the legs. Then the ETS150 sanded all the parts before assembly. The extra design effort paid off and the base went together without a hitch.
The top was the more difficult part on this piece. The curved ends pushed me a little bit.
I started off building the top 8" too long. Then, on the MFT, I cut a 4" strip off each and and glued it on to the top. That built the ends up so they would "stick up" in the final piece. I taped a template for the curve to the edge of the piece. For the outside curve, I was able to use the tablesaw to nibble away the waste and give me a stair stepped version of the curve that was easily smoothed out with a block plane and the ETS150. However, the inside curve was not so easy. I couldn't safely use the tablesaw to make this cut since the center of the board was unsupported. Even with a piece temporarily tacked on, the fact that the edge was in the air made it much more difficult to control the piece that it had with the edge on the table.
After some thought, I realized that a jig I had been designing in my head for another reason would work. I built a dadoing jig for the MFT. I ran the router over the part and adjusted the piece and the bit depth to eventually come up with a stair stepped version on the inside curve. I was then able to use a scraper, rasp, microplanes, and sanding sleeves from my BOSS to smooth out the inside curve. I have detail the jig in another post in the Jigs forum, but here is a shot to give the basic idea.
Since this was to be an outdoor piece, I decided to give it a very durable finish. I saw Norm build a boat and coat the entire thing with epoxy. Over that, I would put some Sikkens spar varnish.
So, I got some of the System3 epoxy made to be used as a UV resistant finish. I put it on using a 2" brush. OK, we're talking less than a week to Christmas here. I hadn't even had time to clean my shop. Usually I clean the place spotless before applying finish. Instead, I had to tread carefully to keep dust down.
I wasn't quite in panic mode until I came down and saw the epoxy finish. On the base, it turned out OK. Since the surfaces were small, the minor waves and bubbles were easy to sand out and get a really nice flat finish. But, the large surface of the top was severely wavy and had tons of bubbles dried into it. An epoxy finish, well, lets just say that's the first time I've sanded a finish flat with 100 grit. I spent almost as long sanding out the epoxy on the top as I had building it in the first place. My guess is that the epoxy thickened while I did the base and was just way too thick as I put it on the top. Wow, that was not fun.
I managed to put on 3 coats of Sikkens over the next few days and finished by Christmas. The bench was still tacky and smelly when I delivered it to my mother Christmas day. The Sikkens finish never really dries super hard since it's an outdoor finish. But, I hoped that this durable finish would allow the bench to live at the beach for at least a few years before needing refinishing.
It turns out, she liked it too much to put it outside and it has resided at the base of her bed since it stopped stinking (about mid January). The wood I used had some really nice figure that was partially obscured by the cloudy outdoor finish too. Oh well. I'm still happy with the design and how it turned out.
