I am a keen DIYer and have a fair amount of wood working tools for odd jobs in the garage and around the house. I fancy making some outdoor furniture for in the garden. What do I need to know before I start? I don't expect anything to be perfect, but I'll happily take my time over it. What sort of wood should I be looking for and where is the best places to source it?
Many thanks in advance.
Teak is good for outdoor furniture as it contains natural oils which protect it from the weather. It can be treated with teak oil to further protect it and enhance its grain. I can purchase it from my local wood yard who specialise in hardwoods rather than construction lumber, google might help you locate a similar source local to you. A friend has recently made two benches and a table for his garden using high quality plywood which looks great but I’m not convinced it will last outside especially over winter.
I used larch from our local sawmill for some Adirondacks, it's high resin content makes it great for outdoors use, I sanded mine and used tung oil to add protection and show off the grain a bit. I'll see if I can find some pics.
https://www.flickr.com/gp/martinddd/08A503
They've all dulled a fair bit now, we cover them most winters, the pic was in 2013.
Oak, larch snd sweet chestnut are all good choices for outdoor furniture as their high tanin content makes them naturally durable. Teak is also a good choice for the same reason but better to use european timber than import a tropical hardwood.
If you don’t have a local timber merchant then have a look at G&S specialist timber. They have a good range of prepared timber sizes which means you won’t need a table saw and planer.
In terms if tools, it depends how you want to join the timber. If you’re using screws / bolts all you’ll need is a drill driver and a tenon saw. Make sure you use stainless steel fixings ir they will react with the tanin and cause black stains. If you want to do traditional joints (Mortice & tenon etc.) you’ll need a carpenters square, chisels and a means of sharpening them.
Make your first item simple and consider making is out cheap wood and remaking it in a year out of the expensive wood above. The woods above are all lovely but will cost a fortune and might be a bit nerve racking to learn on.
Yeah, second the above really. Although all of the above advice is right, I'd personally start out on something cheaper.
I started out like many did using pallets and anything I could find.
Even treated timber from the builders yard can be used to good effect.
Let it weather and learn from it.
Another good way to help to preserve it is to set fire to it. In a controlled way obvs. 🔥
Teak is also a good choice for the same reason but better to use european timber than import a tropical hardwood.
Very much this.
And as kayak says, start small with cheap timber. No point forking out for nice cuts only to balls it up and have it end up in in the log burner.
Thank you very much for the tips so far. I'm going to take them all on board. I have some 3x2 and 4x2 lying around which I was planning on using to practice on, although I'm starting to think a small table saw might make things easier to split things into more usable pieces. I think I have everything else that I'd need. I have seen the burning method to protect the wood, which I think looks really good too.
Western Red Cedar is also fairly readily available, has good weather resistant properties and smells nice to work with.
Thermally modified timber can give a range of finish options and durability at a price. We supplied a place with alder to treat and it came out hard and a nice purple.
Or go down the cheap timber route and find somewhere that can tannalise it in kit form. We build loads of our farm gates at work from whatever we have about when milling and get them treated at local fencing place after drying the timber as much as possible. Per cubic m it is probably cheaper than cuprinol or whatever you choose.
I made some out of a big pile of Ekki I happened to have lying around...
galvanised legs from the hairpin leg co. Grass is starting to fill in properly now as well with some rain.
had to redo one of the benches recently as one of the planks developed a twist.
Oak.
Good enough for Nelson.
Softwood species like pine or cedar will get bashed easily, probably before you've finished it and that is really really really annoying.
Much easier to work than hardwood, but no way will last as long.
Avoid plantation grown anything. More shakes than an AA meeting.
Again, no idea if UK or Johnny Foreigner, but this is the one most makers use.
http://www.timbmet.com/
Any experience of this?
Plantation grown but from the link DynaTi gave
http://www.timbmet.com/uk/products/range/timber-range/red-grandis/
It's a gum tree, Latin is Eucalyptus.
This is another resource -
https://www.wood-database.com/
My point about plantation grown isnt really fair, only a lot of it is quite poor unless its coming from a timber source like timbmet. The best parts of the tree are use in structural or pilings or such, but whats left is what they make those type of benches out of, and just from experience I find it never lasts.
While Im sure you were to pay a premium for premium timber all would be fine, but as with all suppliers a one off customer isnt going to be getting offered the best stuff.
Many of the garden furniture is made of this and I find unless you oil it each year or even twice, it can develop lots of surface checks. Water - ice and its a the start of it breaking apart.
Oak is god because its easy to get, and not too expensive compared to imported timber.
Im just trying not to have you end up with something that might not be best for year round, or might require maintenance or that type of thing. I didnt mean to put you off, but I feel its quite a subject to know all the ins and outs of.
Look at folk joining and they cant even fix their own bike initially. Same minefield applies.
As a weekday desk jockey, occasional woodwork potterer who grew up around a grandfather who made beautiful wooden toys and a dad who apprenticed in carpentry this would be my advice...
1) listen to the more experienced people up there on woods etc as they are much more knowledgeable than me but don't forget that what someone who does lots of major and beautiful projects recommends in terms of tools and equipment may be complete overkill in expense for a lower skill/experience/usage level and that their choices may be driven by their particular long established favourite techniques or types of work. The following other points would be my honest reflection on my own adventures in woodwork...
2) a cheap chisel is perfectly acceptable a blunt chisel is, however, dangerous, ineffective and soul destroying
3) cutting things neat and square the first time is much easier than trying to plane/sand a bad cut straight after
4) it will take 25-50% longer than you think it should take to do it. You can either slow down and spend the extra time at the start OR you can rush it and spend the extra time tidying it up 😏
5) loads of great stuff on You Tube
6) some things are better marked from objects than measured but it won't always be obvious which
7) the 90 and 45 degree angles on saw handles are nowhere near as accurate as a proper square
8) some wood glue is definitely worth having
9) shit screws and I'll fitting / worn out screwdrivers will cause misery
10) a handheld circular saw, some g-cramps and batten combined with some saw trestles will give you an adaptable and easy to store way of chopping up very large bits of timber with straight edges without the bulk of a table saw.
Dyna - Agree with being the weekend warrior who will get every bit of rotten banana wood if the wood yard think they can get away with it. I bought a load from Totton Timber and it was so shit I drove back around to the front of shop and asked the manager to select the wood that he felt was acceptable to sell. Short pause before my load was changed.
I suffer from a posh accent and am white so get loads of racist class assumptions.