Project: Refurbishing a porch bench

[Jim Becker]

When we moved into this house two and a half years ago, the previous owner left a sitting bench on the front porch. The seating area is made of mystery wood slats and the ends with arm rests as well as the center of the back support were cast metal...presumably low grade cast iron based on the fact it rusted a little. It was pretty rickety and it was time to do something about it...either trash it or rebuild it. Well...I chose the latter. The metal was in good condition other than the lack of a good protective finish (only one small broken part that would not affect a rebuild). The wood...needed to go bye-bye. Now, this is not a "fine woodworking" type project; rather, it's another repurposing/rejuvenating effort that can be just as rewarding. There were three pieces to this effort: cleaning up and refinishing the metal components, replacing the wood components and upgrading the hardware that holds it together to substantially stouter hardware.

Here's the "before"...yea, it looks terrible and oh, how wiggly. No amount of tightening existing hardware was going to fix that, either.

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The first step was complete disassembly.

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Having the existing wood in-hand, I calculated the board feet required for replacement material and headed off to Bucks County Hardwoods to pick up some white oak. 'Gonna use the good stuff for this one. It's expensive these days, but using the right material counts big-time for an outdoor project. Yes, the bench will be under cover, but it's outside. I bought a little more material than needed, but it will not go to waste I'm sure.

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The seat slats are about as basic as can be, but the seat back has to be an assembly that fits around the metal insert. The obvious path was to use the existing back, top rail as a pattern for creating a new one. I actually ended up using that piece to make a 1/4" template because the edges of the original were beveled in a way that would preclude pattern routing to clean up the initially bandsawn component.

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[Jim Becker]

Meanwhile, the seat slats and straight pieces for the seat back were ripped out of the material and it was time to fit the seat back so that the metal insert, um...inserted...cleanly. While I had already calculated the length of the vertical components, a little voice in my head (!) suggested that it might be a good idea to use some scrap to test the numbers. The reason is that the original wood components had bevels milled to match the bevels on the metal insert and the replacement components did not. I actively chose to do it this way for simplicity and because in the end it wouldn't matter much to the purpose of the project. Yea, there will be a slightly wider gap around the metal insert, but it will be consistent. The dry fit worked out very nicely.

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Joinery was with 8mm Dominos in the 20mm thick material. Stops on the bench plus a little shimming got the heights all consistent and supported the workpiece during the "plunges". If this was a piece that was going to sit out in the actual weather, I would have sourced Sipo Dominos or made some from scrap, but I just used normal Dominos given the combination of type III glue and subsequent finishing. It will be fine and not likely fail in my lifetime living in a protected area.

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At this point, all the components are cut to size (57mm x1220mm for the flat slats and similar dimensions on the components for the back) and it was time to ease the edges at the router table. Easy task...but I did make a small mental misjudgement in waiting to do the edges of the seat back until after it was glued up. In the past when my router table setup was also part of a table saw with a much larger support surface, it wouldn't have mattered. But now, with just the router table top, it was a little more challenging to do the edges of the glue-up because of material support. But it got done.

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[Jim Becker]

At this point, all the wood components are cut and edged...and sanded.

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I moved on to cleaning up the metal components so they could be painted. Hunter green got the nod as it would match the front door. I used the garden cart to support the metal parts during painting since it was the same color already.

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Meanwhile, it was time to prepare for the fasteners. The original wood had threaded inserts so that the fasteners would be hidden. IMHO, they were too small for the application and there was no provision to keep them from getting loose. For the new wood components, I chose to use heavier 5/16" carriage bolts with nylon nuts...and I fortunately was able to find them in black at the local True Value store. For the five seat slats, a hole on the center line 16mm from the end would put the fasteners in exactly the right spot. In my guitar building endeavors, I bought a handy little tool from Tim Sway awhile ago that gives the exact center for a component...used that for the obvious.

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It was then off to the drill press to do the deed. The holes were made with an 8mm drill bit so there was a little wiggle room while seating the square portion of the carriage bolts in the white oak material. Holes were also located and drilled in the seat back frame after measuring the bench end component attachment point locations. The holes at the bottom of that assembly were up as high as they could go and still work with the bench ends as one side did have a broken tab and I wanted the washers to engage as much metal as possible when they were tightened.

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[Jim Becker]

It was then time to get finish on the wood components. I chose an exterior "spar" urethane as a long oil finish is a good choice for bending and flexing for a piece like this. I'm finding that having the combination slab flattening, track sawing and assembly structure to be very handy for finishing work, too. I did the component bottoms/back first so I didn't have to revisit them. For the most part, that will be unseen. Three coats bottom and top made for a nice smooth surface that should last well.

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Assembly began with seating the carriage bolts in the wood components with a soft hammer to avoid damaging either the finish on the bolts or the surrounding wood.

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Seat slats then get installed on one bench end, snug but not tight. All fasteners get completely set only at the end...there needs to be a little wiggle room to get things together because of how the metal castings are contoured.

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Other end goes up on the bench, supported by a nice big clamp so it will stand on its own.

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From there, seat slats get, um...seated...on the other end to bring the bench together, fasteners added, again snug but not tight and then the wood assembly for the seat back is placed the same way.

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At that point, the fasteners got cranked tight. A clamp was used to insure that the one side with the damaged lower connection point was drawn in tight so the washer engaged correctly. Between the clamp and tightening down the seat slats first, it went together very solid. To install the seat back insert, the bench was tipped forward for horizontal access and some clamps were used to insure it stayed on the workbench. This thing is heavy! Doing the back panel this way allowed adjustment to get it in just the right place for an even reveal around it as seen from the front...see my previous comments about the original wood having beveled edges and the replacement components did not.

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[Jim Becker]

And this brings things full circle from the before to the after:

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This sucker is now "rock sold" and should remain that way. It will be easy to tighten in the future if need be because of wood shrinkage/compression, but the nuts are not going to move on their own. It also looks nice where it lives. Professor Dr. SWMBO is quite pleased. That counts for a lot.

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[Tom Bain]

Looks like it’s brand new! An inviting spot for some porch sittin’.

[Jim Becker]

Looks like it’s brand new! An inviting spot for some porch sittin’.

Thanks. It looks nice, is very sturdy now...no "rock and roll"...and is actually reasonably comfortable to sit on. We don't do that much because of having the three season porch but it's still nice to have.

[George Yetka]

Great project. I recently watched Bourbon Moth video where he rebuilt a similar bench.

[Stan Calow]

You did it the right way. My similar bench ended up in scrap metal and firepit, so I admire the effort.