PATIO BENCH

We got used to having a wicker bench in front of our house which was nice for sitting out and talking to the neighbors, as they walked by. When it finally wore out, I decided to make a new bench.

I made it all out of pressure treated wood, so it would last longer being outdoors. I used coated screws rated for outdoor use also.

I splayed the legs, back and seat at  6°. After the bench was all finished, we noticed that the back forced you to sit up straight, with good posture. If I had to make one again, I would tilt the back a little bit more. I am fortunate enough to have multiple saws, so that I could leave different saws set at the angles that I used for this project. This is handy when having to make adjustments as you go along.

After ripping all the widths needed, I put in the dado blade for making all the half lap joints. With the angle cuts you have to flip the boards from left to right for the cuts. It really helped using two miter gauges for making the dado cuts.

I added some slots by making rough cuts with a jig saw.

Then I finished the slots with a router for a clean straight slot. At this time I also rounded off the slots and some other sections with a  ½” roundover bit.

 After the final assembly I ran the roundover bit on all the rest of the edges.

Fortunately when I got done assembling the bench, I had a calm, cloudy morning for spraying the bench outside.

Since this was going to left outside all summer, we decided to go with a lightweight polypropylene webbing. This was a good choice, as it was flexible enough to wrap around the screws easily, yet strong enough for a solid seat.

I really like the method of making a “Danish Rope” seat cover. It allows you to weave the entire seat, pulling the rope off the reel, without cutting or measuring a length. So I incorporated that method for my webbing.

When using the Danish rope, small nails are sufficient enough for hooking the rope. For my webbing I needed something stronger and with a big head to hold the webbing.   1 ¼” lathe screws worked perfect. For the places where I started and ended a section, I used   ¾” lathe screws.

To add a little pizazz to this, we chose two colors, and two different widths. The gray webbing is   1 ½” wide, and the white is  1” wide. So I spaced the screws about   1 5/16” apart. This allowed  1/16” gap between webs, for the space needed when you run the web crossways. This shows the process when I began the first half of the seat.

In this picture of the second half of the seat, you’ll notice I added the second layer of screws that are needed for the weaving the back.

After the first summer season, I found I needed to redo the bench a little. I found that the back rest was not tilted back enough. It was too uncomfortable to sit in it for very long. So I cut the back rest at the bottom, in order to tilt it back.

Then I made a matching wedge to fill the gap.

I added a new support for the back side. Also, I found that I hadn't let some of the pressure treated wood, dry long enough, before I had painted it. So the paint had started to peel off. I had to sand it all down, and let it dry throughout the winter, before I could repaint it with a brush.

This all took a lot of thinking along the way, while having to make a few corrections as I went, but it turned out well.

The webbing material would only last two years before it would start to break down. So I replaced it with a new covering that is UV resistant.

#Outdoorbench #Patiobench #polypropylene #weavingmaterial