hand carved redwood bench #1: The materials, site, and thoughts

I’ve been building a fence here at the house I’m renting (see blog). I ended up getting 2 sections out of one board as opposed to the 1 section I originally thought so I figured I’d use some of the material for a couple of projects. The first one is this bench, the second will be a carved screen door. This project is going to be a little tricky because I don’t really have “fresh” materials, nor do I have the thickness’s I would buy if this was going to be a project I wasn’t just throwing out there. In this case I am using material that has nail holes, it’s torn up, etc. Well basically it’s fence material. LOL. So there will be a lot of jointing, planing, and figuring. I’m sure there will be plenty of waist as well, but we will see.
To stat this off we have the materials. In the next sections I will show more of the process as I am starting the build as soon as I hit “post” to this blog.

The leg material. This is the fall off from the 2×4s used on the fence. My goal is to run one face through the jointer and then glue 2 together per leg. Then once the glue dries I will run 2 faces through the jointer and then plane to thickness. Because the material will turn Grey I’m not concerned with the grain patterns matching, etc. Hopefully it won’t delaminate in the future.

I have glued up the back rest into one plank.

Here is the material I will dig through to find the arm rests, seat slats, aprons, etc. This is also the material for the gate, and the other fence sections. What are the chances I won’t have to buy more? LOL

And this is going to be the new location for this bench.

I hope you all enjoy this series, and I will do my best to be as descriptive as I can. As always I welcome constructive criticism, positive or negative.

-- ~ Inspiring those who inspire me ~