• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Two Builds from 2020

D

duke

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Staked bench using wood salvage from local dump. And two end tables.1000000057.jpg1000000056.jpg1000000051.jpg1000000054.jpg
 
The bench is only salvaged wood, knotty White Pine. Tables made from my wood store are flamed Maple for the legs and White Oak stained and finished with a wiping varnish. Bench remains in our house and the tables for my son's new to him cottage.
 
You'r right , never noticed it till you pointed it out! LOL
 
Interesting staked bench. At Great Dixter (a well known garden and country house), not far from us, they have a guy there who makes quite a lot of these. They sell them at the twice yearly plant fairs and he also does short courses on how to make them using traditional tools.
 
GaryR said:
Those pieces fit the setting nicely!
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I wish I didn't give them to my son. They have since sold the cottage and the tables are in their living room at their new home.
 
AJB Temple said:
Interesting staked bench. At Great Dixter (a well known garden and country house), not far from us, they have a guy there who makes quite a lot of these. They sell them at the twice yearly plant fairs and he also does short courses on how to make them using traditional tools.
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Very easy to make, I tried to only use hand tools but used battery operated drill to bore the mortices. Hand saw to square the seat up , hand plane and card scraper for surface work and legs, drawknife for the tenons. Setting the rake and splay was a challenge . Used a bevel gauge and a few pencil lines and hoped for the best.
 
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Without this meaning to sound like a criticism, I was wondering about the square shoulders on the legs. Is that deliberate, rather than scribing a shoulder to come flush to the underside of the bench seat?
 
Mike G said:
Without this meaning to sound like a criticism, I was wondering about the square shoulders on the legs. Is that deliberate, rather than scribing a shoulder to come flush to the underside of the bench seat?
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None taken, deliberate as I have seen it done both ways. I was drawn to a square shoulder and preferred the detail.
 
The way the Dixter ones are done, since Mike raised the shoulder point, is to step the legs into a wider hole at the bottom just using a bigger auger in a brace. Gives a neat shoulder and also better support. The dowel is pared down with a chisel to go through a smaller top hole and a slot cut with the grain for a contrast wedge. It's quick & effective & neat.
 
AJB Temple said:
The way the Dixter ones are done, since Mike raised the shoulder point, is to step the legs into a wider hole at the bottom just using a bigger auger in a brace. Gives a neat shoulder and also better support. The dowel is pared down with a chisel to go through a smaller top hole and a slot cut with the grain for a contrast wedge. It's quick & effective & neat.
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Forgot to mention I put a slight taper on the tenons and the wedges snugged the legs up nicely. I will see if I can source an image for the bench you have mentioned.
 
AJB Temple said:
The way the Dixter ones are done, since Mike raised the shoulder point, is to step the legs into a wider hole at the bottom just using a bigger auger in a brace. Gives a neat shoulder and also better support. The dowel is pared down with a chisel to go through a smaller top hole and a slot cut with the grain for a contrast wedge. It's quick & effective & neat.
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Can you recall the makers name?
 
Sorry Duke. I can visualise the guy but can't for the life of me remember his name. They get quite a few students on work placement for a year of two as the place is quite special. Dixter is run by Fergus Garrett these days and he is a really nice bloke. If it is no longer on their website I will ask him next time we see him. They sold the benches typically for around £140 to £240 at the fairs depending on size and timber. Mostly sourced from the estate / farm. They also make split hurdles, small gates and stuff using traditional methods. The spring fair was unfortunately cancelled this year (we intended to help) because the care park fields were so wet.
 
AJB Temple said:
Sorry Duke. I can visualise the guy but can't for the life of me remember his name. They get quite a few students on work placement for a year of two as the place is quite special. Dixter is run by Fergus Garrett these days and he is a really nice bloke. If it is no longer on their website I will ask him next time we see him. They sold the benches typically for around £140 to £240 at the fairs depending on size and timber. Mostly sourced from the estate / farm. They also make split hurdles, small gates and stuff using traditional methods. The spring fair was unfortunately cancelled this year (we intended to help) because the care park fields were so wet.
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Had a look at the website, nice grounds. With my three visits to England my wife who is English enjoyed the stately manors and castles open to the public. Shame about the spring closure.
 
AJB Temple said:
The way the Dixter ones are done, since Mike raised the shoulder point, is to step the legs into a wider hole at the bottom just using a bigger auger in a brace. Gives a neat shoulder and also better support. The dowel is pared down with a chisel to go through a smaller top hole and a slot cut with the grain for a contrast wedge. It's quick & effective & neat.
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Am I visualising this right? Is the only shoulder up inside the hole?
 
Yes, leg fits into a socket in the bottom of the plank. Top part of leg is shaved to be narrower (forming a shoulder in the leg) and penetrates a smaller hole in the top and is wedged. Prevents leg movement in both directions. Also works fine if you have a conical cutter. These are rustic items and you want manufacture to be quick and not fussy.

The reason I am familiar with this is I helped out with a couple of classes pre covid. The way students were taught was legs have a saw kerf run round an inch or so from the top and then cut down to the kerf with a chisel or a bill hook (leg clamped in vice or workmate) if you are confident. It's not necessarily the way I would choose but it was not my course. Not even sure if they still run it. Hope so as it got people interested in woodwork. Will find out at the summer fair.
 
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