How many times have you walked around a garden centre and looked wistfully at the wooden benches and chairs on display that you would love to see in your garden, but unfortunately you can’t afford the price tag of several hundred dollars! With a decent set of woodworking bench plans it doesn’t have to be that way and you too can be seated under the sun on a sturdy, beautiful bench which you haven’t had to spend a small fortune on.
With the large selection of woodworking plans on the market at the moment, all you need to know is which plans suit your needs best, then you can use the skills laid out in these guides and get building your own wooden pieces of garden furniture instead of buying these in the stores.
If you have already followed other articles and plans then you will have built up a small skill set and your confidence will have grown with each completed project. Building a wooden bench uses the same methods and techniques as similar woodworking projects like beds and tables, so these are not a million miles away from each other and adapting your skills will now start to come naturally.
Once you have your bench plans, get your material lists together – these should include the wood for the project, sundries and tools. To build a bench you will need a large and small MDF sheet, synthetic bamboo flooring sheets and some pine board. Your sundries will include the usual wood adhesive, nails, screws, filler and spackle.
You should probably start to upgrade your tool list at this point as bamboo sheets can be tricky to cut with a hand saw. As you are moving along through your projects, start to invest some money in power tools and make a mitre saw top of this list as it will save so much time and effort over the years. Add to this a nail gun and electric screwdriver and you can get on with your projects without fear of constantly tiring yourself out.
Now in a few simple steps we will explain how you can build a bamboo bench. Remember that exact measurements will be down to you and proper woodworking plans will cover the steps in much more detail.
Using the MDF sheets create two long and short sides, this box will be the base for your bench seat and the length of the long sides will determine the length of the bench. Nail these together and then nail a couple of stringers across the long sides for added support. Check that these are equal distances apart before fastening.
Next you need to create the square slots that your legs will fit into, so using pre-cut small pieces of wood, assemble these in the corners of the base and nail them together, placed perpendicular to the stringers. At this point you must remember to place a fifth square support in the middle of the bench, so that the whole thing won’t collapse if a heavy weight is placed in the middle.
The next step is to build five legs of equal length using the MDF and matching the dimensions of the square leg holders. These can be secured into the holders by simply applying a small amount of wood adhesive upon entry.
The last stage is to cut a bamboo seat which again can be attached to the base using the adhesive. The mitre saw will come in handy here, but don’t worry if you don’t have one, it will just take a little longer and a bit more effort, but you’ll get there in the end.
That is you bamboo bench complete and just remember that the woodworking bench plans can be combined and adapted to make other wooden pieces of furniture, just use the same techniques and principles and you might even be able to sell items in the future when your wooden projects take on a professional quality.
