If you were to make this bench what wood would you use and how would you finish it?

It would be for indoor use and looking for wood that’s relatively easy to work but will be durable.

Lignum vitae.

Oak would be the best combination of cost/workability/durability. If you wanted it to be dark, you could stain with a myriad of oil based darkening stains – wenge, walnut etc.

That bench would look fantastic in walnut – but buying the timber might be expensive – relatively easy to work but can be a bit “funny” to sand and finish.

If you’re lucky, kayak23 might see this and post – he’s yer man for this kind of stuff. I’m just a brute. 🙂

Cherry would be beautiful.

Cherry would be beautiful.

Yeah, I was going to suggest Cherry but it’s not so trendy these days – no idea what the raw materials would cost either – probably pricey even if not fashionable.

Ash, all the way.

Padauk.

I’m not being very helpful here sorry.

Whats your budget?

A bodger would say ash 😛

It would be nice in ash though.

Ply, layers facing up. Accentuate the linear form of the bench

I’d considered Ash and also Sapele (from Africa and not sure if it’s sustainable). Oak might be too pricey

Teak.
Teak Oil.

Teak is way over budget 🙂 but would be nice

The bench will be smaller than the picture. Roughly 1000mm long, 500mm high and 400mm deep, with 5 slats. So about 18 metres planed planks I think. Ideally like to spend less than £80

Ebay Teak

Go harder than a hard thing and go wenge

Nice bench.
You could use any timber you want really.
Ash would be at the lower cost end, (American) Oak about middle getting higher, and Walnut crazy expensive.
Wenge and Padouk would be pricey but nice. Wenge can be a very brittle and awkward timber to work but is beautiful finished.

Yeah (American black) Walnut seems to be getting very pricey, at least where I get it from.

As above, Oak is beautiful and can be made to take lots of looks, from liming (white) to fuming (dark).

The corner joints look mitred, but are probably not just straight mitres. They’ll be reinforced, perhaps with biscuits, or a loose tongue or something.

Would you buy the wood planed to size or plane it up yourself?

CLS.

Loads of nice woods you could use, ash or sycamore would be lovely white shades and easy to work, also Douglas Fir quick may prove a bit harder. Beech or Cherry have nice honey coloured tones. Western Red Cedar is nice to work with too and durable, some rich colour in Yew. Most of these smell nice to cut too.

My background is more in the raw material, so can’t say how well anything will work, but do get to fell and mill some interesting stuff.

CLS

Actually there are plenty of versions of this bench outside Copenhagen cafes made from similar stuff!

Would you buy the wood planed to size or plane it up yourself?

Buy planed to size probably

This will be my first go at making something not from pine and using all proper joints (no mechanical fixings). Currently doing a evening woodwork class and this gives me access to workshop tools/machines. It’s a school workshop and they could plane the wood but don’t want to use up workshop time on this.

Perhaps a biscuit jointer would give the cleanest mitre joins? Loose tongue might be harder to line up

A dado cutter would also make really neat joints on the cross pieces… but don’t think they have one

There’s little strength in mitres (where it’s end-grain on end- grain) unless you incorporate mortise/tenons, and that thing is all about coping with the racking stresses. Biscuits aren’t a suitable reinforcement on a joint in that position. I’d probably go with through mortise/tenon, possibly even wedged, with mitred shoulders on the four outer corners.

walnut

and buy one that looks just like it from Ikea

and how would you finish it?

Probably with some sort of victory lap of the workshop.

Other than that, Osmo hard wax oil gives a beautiful finish, as does Danish oil. Both pretty easy to apply.

You could use a mitred bridle joint and even peg the joints after for additional support.

Looking at your image though, it’s not a bridle joint so probably uses some sort of hidden reinforcement such as a Domino in the deepest section or a tongue, cut to not project through the upper faces.

Make the whole thing out of bog oak.

Mango

I’m having second thoughts about those mitred joints, mainly as there would be 10… However, if there is a repeatable way to make a mitred bridle joint in a straight forward way then I’ll stick to the original. The joint strength will live or die by how close a fit it is.

I might be taking on too much within one project. I could simplfy the design to something like this

I think I’d come up with a more elegant leg design though and use fewer and wider slats.

A bodger would say ash 😛

Damn right 😉

If I was to make a seat like that, and make it strong enough to sit on I would make a bunch of L shapes out of 9mm plywood, half with 150mm horizontals, half with 400mm horizontals. Glue 3 together, with the corresponding straight bits and you will have a 27-ish mm super strong frame.

I quite like the look of plywood ends, finished nicely.