Oak garden furniture (somewhat cubic)

[matthew]

Much machining later, my oak garden furniture is finally completed:

The design is very simple - thought chairs were too complicated so went for stools instead Construction is also straightforward - although I'm not quite sure about the through tenons, maybe they would be better hidden - but I guess I wanted to emphasize that it's not just bolted together.

Lots of machining, as you can imagine! The slats on the table are mitred, but it was a real PITA to glue them up so for the stools I just used a housing, hence you can can see the endgrain at the top.

When I asked here about putting it together, it was suggested to counterbore screwholes and then plug. I went halfway (too many plugs to contemplate ).

Overall, it's turned out OK - even though I was much less concerned with absolute accuracy and perfection of finish than getting it done in time to use while the weather is good. It was interesting to work on something from that perspective - I've learned a lot about working repetitively, machining lots of identical components.

As ever, thanks for the advice offered during construction of this, and comments/suggestions appreciated!

Matthew

 

[wizer]

:shock: WOW! I really really like it, very modern and very different. A unique piece indeed.... until i nick the idea that is

 

[nickson71]

Nice looking work ........ I may nick the idea if I ever get a garden

 

[Chris Knight]

Matthew,

Wow indeed! Not sure if I really like it yet but it is visually very striking and extremely stylish. I do like the through tenons very much - they look very well executed and nicely classy.


I sure would appreciate a few details:-

How have you fixed all the intermediate pieces to the "rails"? Are all the top pieces mitred to the side pieces? How did you join them?

 

[Paul Chapman]

That looks really nice, Matthew - and different =D>

Paul

 

[mailee]

That is great Matthew, It is unusual and well made. Well done mate.

 

[PowerTool]

Excellent work,and very original.

Must have taken you ages to make,but well worth the time and effort.

Andrew

 

[matthew]

Thanks for the comments!

How have you fixed all the intermediate pieces to the "rails"? Are all the top pieces mitred to the side pieces? How did you join them?

Construction is pretty basic, designed more for speed of building rather than fancy jointing. The front and frames are just M&T, with a shoulder on the tenon as you can see - then front-to-back rails also M&T between them, to create a basic frame.

The intermediate parts were glued up beforehand into individual inverted U-shapes. I did the table first and mitred them, but they were awkward to clamp and very delicate when glued, had to resort to cutting wedges to glue inside to reinforce them. Although I prefer the look of the mitres, I got fed up with that when I did the stools - so instead just made through housings in the horizontals and tenons in the verticals, hence you can see the endgrain.

Finally, just screwed them onto the frame, through the pre-drilled & counterbored rails using SS screws (those are expensive!). Any irregularities along the bottom edge were dealt with by some liberal use of 60 grit on the sander

Must have taken you ages to make

It's probably my quickest project yet, spurred on by wanting to actually use it in the summer I think about 8 weeks total (some long weekends!). Although I'm gradually building up my workshop and did most of it at home, I've also been doing woodwork evening classes so I could get some of the grunt work done at the local college - it's a carpentry workshop during the day so they have big heavy stuff. Most of the wood was ripped on their table saw (which goes through it like butter); I dimensioned it on the thicknesser there (calibrated and multi feed, much quicker than my HC260!) and I got through all the mortices with a large heavy morticer. Meantime, building a router table at home was definitely worthwhile for all the tenons and housings - amazing how quick I could get through them.

Thanks again!
Matthew

 

[Scrit]

Very nice! Like it!

Scrit

 

[devonwoody]

Pleasant design and should have given you those happy hours making and many more to the future.

 

[JPEC]

Nice work =D>
I am not a huge fan of 'modern' but i do like that. Very striking and original. Will give you a lot of 'i made that' satisfaction.
What is it finished with, if anything?

Cheers

Julian

 

[Adam]

Very nice. Really unusual, and makes it look very "custom" - as you'd never get that in B&Q!

Adam

 

[dedee]

Matthew, unusual and very striking, I like it.

Did you apply a finish? or are you going for the weathered look?

Andy

 

[Mcluma]

Matthew,

very nice work =D>

 

[Drew]

Hi Mathew

very nice looking pieces, well done.

Drew

 

[JFC]

Looks very smart ! Great design idea .

 

[matthew]

Thanks again...

Did you apply a finish? or are you going for the weathered look?

This was a topic of some debate. First was planning to oil it. Then my wife and I decided that neither of us would be bothered to keep oiling it periodically, so perhaps best not to bother to start with so we just put it outside.

The colour of the wood looked great unfinished, but then said spouse took exception to the watermarks the rain was leaving so gave in and oiled it which has made it a bit more waterproof (as demonstrated today). Of course then the darker colour was brought into question... but suspect that a few months down the line it won't have made any difference either way.

Short answer: 2 coats of bog standard garden furniture oil.

M

 

[wrightclan]

Well done. =D> "Modern" not to my taste. But well designed and well made.

Brad

 

[CYC]

I would say, finishing this piece was tedious work with all the spaces between each lenghts!!! I am glad I didn't have to do it