Making Chunky Furniture

[ED65]

As a rule they don't stain, they use coloured overcoats. You see the evidence of this on a lot of cheap 'brown furniture' where there's wear-through at a corner or a scratch that reveals the very pale wood underneath.
That isif they've avoided the godawful blotching in pine. You do sometimes see commercial stuff with bad blotching, although it's often somewhat masked by the similar-colour varnish or lacquer on top.

Using a dye and coloured top coat helps the wear through not to show so badly as well as helping cover the blotching.

Yes of course. But after seeing so much horrendously stained SPF projects online I'm hyper-sensitive to blotching (I can't imagine I'm the only one!) and hate to see it on commercial stuff, even if partly obscured by a coloured topcoat.

I do realise that it's a catch-22 situation, since the ideal is for the colour to be mostly or entirely in the wood.

 

[Tasky]

Pretty confident I can get hold of saw horses and they will prove to be a worthwhile investment.

Make some yourself - It's easy, fun, good tool practice and they'll be far better than the cheapy plastic versions in B&Q.
Paul Sellers has a good YouTube explanatory video on the whole build from start to finish. Even my own shoddily made pair will support over 800lbs!

 

[thetyreman]

just please for the love of god don't leave it unplaned then wax the surface with a dark coloured wax, this drives me crazy every time I see it, the effect looks horrendous.