I’ve gathered up a few old garden benches that are, to say the least, past their best. They are in such a bad state of repair that not even the local pigeons will use them. I’ve got four benches, two have cast iron frames and a cast inlay to the back rest, one that has cast frame and a tie rod between the legs for stability and a fourth – and more recent – that has a wrought iron looking frame that’s made from plastic coated mild steel by the look of it.
Of the four benches, only the cast frames and the ‘wrought iron frame’ are salvageable along with some support straps, everything else is for the recycling bin.
The cast frames are in reasonable condition with not major breakages etc; they just needed a very good rub down with a wire brush to get rid of years of accumulated ‘stuff’. After a couple of coats of smooth back Hammerite they look as good as new.
I decided to rebuild the benches with oak slats – oak is a lovely wood to work with, it is a long lasting timber and if I don’t get round to maintaining the wood then it will turn to the lovely silver colour of aged and exposed oak. Thanks go to AC Timber at Ely for help in sourcing the best size of timber for this project.
The first task was to run the sawn oak through my thicknesser to regularise all the planks and get rid of all the saw marks, The planks are all around 4 inch x 1 inch and around 8 foot long so I can cut them into 2 inch wide slats and then in half to give me the 4 foot length needed for the benches,
After a quick sand they are ready to go.
First task is to make the surround to the two cast iron back rests as the length of this would give me the final length for the slats.
This is a mock up to see how it looks, I’ve got to form a rebate for the fixings a the slats are thicker than the cast iron and also the sides of the frame are not at right angle to the fixings. So a bit more work to do yet.
