2x4s for outdoor furniture?

[uncleswede]

Hi.

I have in mind a project to build fully wooden, 2-person garden swing chair and frame. Ideally I'd use a rot-resistant hardwood like cedar or teak but that is going to cost an arm and a leg.

So, my question is - given a well engineered, sturdy design for the frame, is it possible to use standard 2x4 timbers and treat/preserve them so that they'll a) look good and b) last 10yrs plus?

Appreciate your input.

Cheers
CD

 

[duke]

I have used PT (pressure treated lumber) for outdoor furniture. Always use a preservative on cut surfaces. Also have stained the PT lumber.

 

[Fitzroy]

Treat all cut surfaces, design to minimize ground contact, design for draining and avoid areas/joints that will collect water, don't position it in a damp shadowed corner. A bloke on YT did some experiments with PT timber and after 5yrs of some pretty abusive external conditions it was still ok, but PT much better than non PT and cut surfaces treated were better than non cut surfaces.

 

[Agent_zed]

A lot of the time if you look at where outdoor furniture rots you'll see it is places where water sits (e.g seating planks) and legs (where it touches the ground).

If you design it to eliminate these problems or at least reduce them it should last longer. For instance making the final part of the legs out of something that isn't going to rot or hold moisure. Perhaps a metal base into a concrete pad etc.

For the seating slats instead of just flat boards if you curve the tops water will be more likely to bead off

make parts easily replaceable as well so if a slat does rot out you can just unbolt/screw and stick a new one on.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

^^^^^^ yes. Ensure you soak the ends for a few days, don't just dip them in and out.
I made a softwood gate thirty years ago that's still solid - the parts were pickled in Cuprinol for a few weeks and then dried out prior to assembly. It's been painted well over the years.

 

[Richard_C]

Yes, I've used it successfully. Some things lasted 20 years plus. All the above about designing it to drain is good advice, on one table I put 2 dome headed bolts into the endgrain of the legs so the wood was a few mm above the ground.

If it s something that needs to be flat, like a table, you can put a couple of bricks under one end in November so rain runs off nicely until you start using it again in spring l.