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I saw this garden bench plan set from Rockler and wanted to try my hand at doing a bench like this for our front porch. Being mostly a protected area I figure with the proper finish it should hold up well under our Virginia weather conditions. The house faces north so it will have no direct sun exposure as well.
I haven't figure out what wood I'll use just yet and so far I've narrowed my choices down to availability of the wood itself by thickness. The arms and legs are 2-1/4" thick which will require either 10/4 wood or a glued up set equal to that thickness. My local wood yard has a fair selection of woods but not many in those thicknesses.
The plans came with a set of cardboard templates to be used to trace out the shapes on 1/4" material, in my case MDF, so I proceeded with that and then took them to the band saw having set it up for a 1/8" blade and the guide bushing. I cut close to the line trying not to cut to the line but usually was maybe 1/16-1/8" off the line.
After that I took the pieces to my Triton TSPS450 Oscillating Spindle Sander, kinda wish I had gotten the TSPST450 model but oh well, to sand down to the lines. At this point I realized that MDF when sanded like this will curl at the edge like a paper shaving and obstruct the lines. So I realized I needed to clean off the edges as I proceeded or risk going over the lines. This worked great on the curved parts as you could pivot the piece as you sanded but the straighter pieces were a bit more of a challenge trying to get to the line as the thickness of the waste, from the edge to the line, varied.
In some places I found myself trying to sand with more pressure, futher from the line, while moving the piece side to side. This resulted in a few pieces having a rolling feel when you ran your fingers back and forth to inspect. I used the smallest sander size due to the tight curves transition to straight edge but not sure that was the best way to proceed. The last sanding pass was to smooth any dips by making even passes lightly over the entire area. The dips are barley noticeable and can be sanded out on the final wood pieces.
So in the end I have a few questions. Is MDF the better choice for making these templates? What about my procedure could have been changed to make this easier? How do you choose which sanding drum diameter is best to use and which grit? I'm not unhappy with the results but maybe could have improved on the process. Had I gotten the Triton TSPST unit with the belt sander ability it may have been a bit easier when doing the straight parts of the templates but then again I guess I could have used the sanding disk on my Shopsmith for the straight parts but didn't think of that until afterwards of course. I never got around to see what plans I could find to build a stand for my old Sears belt sander, maybe I need to look into that as well.
I haven't figure out what wood I'll use just yet and so far I've narrowed my choices down to availability of the wood itself by thickness. The arms and legs are 2-1/4" thick which will require either 10/4 wood or a glued up set equal to that thickness. My local wood yard has a fair selection of woods but not many in those thicknesses.
The plans came with a set of cardboard templates to be used to trace out the shapes on 1/4" material, in my case MDF, so I proceeded with that and then took them to the band saw having set it up for a 1/8" blade and the guide bushing. I cut close to the line trying not to cut to the line but usually was maybe 1/16-1/8" off the line.
After that I took the pieces to my Triton TSPS450 Oscillating Spindle Sander, kinda wish I had gotten the TSPST450 model but oh well, to sand down to the lines. At this point I realized that MDF when sanded like this will curl at the edge like a paper shaving and obstruct the lines. So I realized I needed to clean off the edges as I proceeded or risk going over the lines. This worked great on the curved parts as you could pivot the piece as you sanded but the straighter pieces were a bit more of a challenge trying to get to the line as the thickness of the waste, from the edge to the line, varied.
In some places I found myself trying to sand with more pressure, futher from the line, while moving the piece side to side. This resulted in a few pieces having a rolling feel when you ran your fingers back and forth to inspect. I used the smallest sander size due to the tight curves transition to straight edge but not sure that was the best way to proceed. The last sanding pass was to smooth any dips by making even passes lightly over the entire area. The dips are barley noticeable and can be sanded out on the final wood pieces.
So in the end I have a few questions. Is MDF the better choice for making these templates? What about my procedure could have been changed to make this easier? How do you choose which sanding drum diameter is best to use and which grit? I'm not unhappy with the results but maybe could have improved on the process. Had I gotten the Triton TSPST unit with the belt sander ability it may have been a bit easier when doing the straight parts of the templates but then again I guess I could have used the sanding disk on my Shopsmith for the straight parts but didn't think of that until afterwards of course. I never got around to see what plans I could find to build a stand for my old Sears belt sander, maybe I need to look into that as well.
