Over the years I’ve built my mum many things for the garden. Instead of her hinting at something she’d like purchased for Christmas or a birthday I often get asked how long it would take to make something. In fact, it’s from this that I’ve built a small business making garden related items out of wood.
She has a massive garden, so big she has opened it to the public in the past, and there are different areas and smaller gardens set in amongst an acre. There’s a walled kitchen garden area – the wall built to hide my father’s machinery business – a huge pond and a stream that people think is natural, a shady garden planted under a walnut tree she planted over 40 years ago when they first moved there.
I love looking around the garden and I love seeing all the different things I’ve built or contributed to over the years. The playhouse we built for my sister 28 years ago, the brick shed (I built the roof and slated it), the raised beds I’ve now built twice as they rotted away the first time (15 years ago), the first time I built them all with turned finials, there are gates, sweet chestnut arches, the list goes on.
I’ve also built multiple potting benches, for her and for myself. Having a dedicated area to pot up or sow seeds in the garden is a really lovely thing to have. Over the years, I’ve discovered they don’t need to be quite as heavy duty as a workshop workbench – it’s almost a waste of wood to have one that heavy duty. This time I wanted to make one a little lighter weight, one that could be easily transported to my mum’s house.
A potting tray for mixing compost needs to be in an area that’s easy to clean and scoop from, with somewhere to stack the pots when they’re full before they’re moved out to the greenhouse. A shelf under it makes the most use of the space, for storing spare pots and other bits.
You will need
Timber:
44 x 44 planed timber:
2no. 1,110mm
2no. 900mm
8no. 600mm
70 x 21mm timber:
13no. 1,100mm slats
2no 1,300mm slats (for the brace)
200 x 21mm timber (for the apron):
1no. 1,100mm (back)
2no. 621mm (sides)
Other materials
Glue
Boiled linseed oil
4no. 12mm coach bolts 110mm long, nuts and washers to suit
Building a potting bench from CLS would be the cheapest way to build this. I pay about £6 for 4.8m at the moment and this makes it about as cheap as you can get. Screwed together this would be perfectly acceptable in most gardens. But as it’s my mum and I’m a carpenter it’s nice to build something a bit fancier, something that will last and looks ‘posh’. When I’m making something for the garden I always think I’d like to make something that a gardener of old would look at and think ‘that’s built well’.
So although I’ve chosen to use softwood (mainly for cost reasons), I decided to use a joinery-quality Scandinavian redwood. It’s easy timber to work with and use, and when treated with a few coats of boiled linseed oil I know it will last a long time. It also really does look good when it’s all planed up. I bought the timber rough sawn as unsorted redwood, but you could buy ready planed lumber for this. I planed most of mine down to 21mm, but 18mm would also be fine, I just tried to keep as much timber as possible from the sawn boards.
Preparing the timber
1. When making a project like this, I like to adjust things to work with the timber I have or have bought in. For example, I had originally planned to make the bench 1.2m wide, but when I looked in my store, I found some boards that were 2.25m; if I had stuck to my original plan then each board would have had 1m of ‘waste’. The same here with these 200 x 50mm boards to rip down for the legs2. If you can dimension all the timber at the start it makes it much easier. I ripped some 200 x 50mm boards down to make the 44 x 44mm needed for the frames and also all the other timbers. The 70mm x 21m came from 150mm stock. The tablesaw is ideal for this3. With all the stock ripped down to the rough size it’s time to plane it down. I run each piece across the surfacer first, then plane the side 90° to that face, running the initially planed surface against the fence. This gives me a piece of timber square on two sides, marked up here4. Run this all through the thicknesser now, making sure the opposite sides to the ones just surfaced run on the bed of the thicknesser first. Then dimension down to size5. Crosscut the pieces for the frame to the correct lengths
Marking up
6. Lay the pieces together, making sure the ends are all in line, and mark up the halving joints. I used a waste piece of wood to work out how wide each joint needs to be7. My mitre saw has a very simple screw adjuster for setting the depth when using it to trench rather than crosscut8. Mark up the depth of the cut on a scrap piece of wood and adjust the saw to suit. With my saw I have to add a sacrificial piece of wood against the fence to ensure the bottom of the halving joint will be flat
Making the joints
9. Use two offcuts to test if the depth is correct. If it is, they should both sit flush with each other when mated up. It’s better to spend the time adjusting here rather than have to fettle every joint later10. Use the mitre saw to cut a series of grooves in the waste of each joint. You should always wear eye protection when using this saw, but it’s particularly important when doing something like this as wood can splinter off easily11. Possibly the most satisfying thing you can do in woodworking – break off all the little bits that are left in the waste of your joint. Use a mallet and savour the moment they break off12. Take a freshly sharpened chisel and clean each joint up. You could also use a router plane, or a rebate plane, take care not to splinter out the far side of the joint
Assembling the frame
13. Start to assemble the frame, marking up the joints as you go and making any adjustments as needed14. Assemble the frames full, but dry. Check for square by measuring to the same joint on each side15. Pilot and countersink two holes on each joint, this will aid its strength, especially initially while the glue goes off16. Glue and assemble each joint. Make sure glue is spread on all the mating surfaces17. Now is the best time to wipe off excess glue using a damp rag. Make sure all the joints are clean. When you have assembled the frame sand it all to 120 grit18. Set a small router with a bearing-guided chamfer bit. You could use a round over bit here instead, but I think using such nice timber it’s better to have the crispness of a chamfer rather than risk it looking like CLS with the round over. Chamfer all the edges of the frame
Making the top and shelf
19. Cut all the slats for the top and the shelf to length, then rout the chamfer and sand them. Lay them out on the remaining pieces of 44 x 44mm timber and work out the even spacing. Mine worked with a gap of 19mm on the top and 17mm on the self20. Use a spacer of the appropriate width and fix down the timbers, taking care to pilot and countersink each screw first. I butted mine up against a 9mm piece of ply on the ends to give a bit of overhang
Assembling the bench
21. With the top and shelf now made you can put the bench together. Use some clamps to aid you if you’re doing this on your own22. With the clamps in place, drill a 12mm hole through the frame into the shelf supports. Take care not to let the drill bit break out the other side. Either clamp a piece of waste on the other side to stop this, or watch for the drill bit to start to come through, then stop and drill from the other way23. Knock in a coach bolt and tighten it up in all four positions.24. Roll the bench over on to its front and check for square. Then lay the last two of the 70mm boards on top to form a cross. Line it up with the underside of the top, then mark up the joint to be cut as well as the over lengths of the timber. Cut the halving joint just the same as we did for the main two frames25. With the halving joint cut, the cross brace should sit nicely on the back of the bench. Rout the chamfer on these and then fix them in place. A single brace from one side to the other would work just as well here, but the cross looks a lot nicer26. Now it’s just a matter of putting on the top skirt. Cut the 200 x 21mm timber to length and chamfer it before fixing with some 5 x 50mm screws from behind. It should be easy to fix as it will sit on top of the bracing we just added27. The side pieces of the top skirt look a lot better if they taper. Mark out the cut you want and cut with a track saw (you could also use a tablesaw or bandsaw here.) Fix in place by screwing into the back piece and into the slats of the top28. Vanity prevents me from making something and not adding my mark. Now is the perfect time to brand or make your mark on your work 29. To add some protection for the top and to provide the ideal place to mix up compost I added a sheet of some reclaimed 1.2mm galvanised sheeting. I cut it to size using a cordless nibbler I have – this isn’t a very common tool but I like it as it doesn’t produce sparks. You could use a grinder or a sheet metal guillotine instead30. Cut the sheet to the rough size, lay it where it needs to go and mark out for the two back uprights. Cut these out as well and lay the sheet in place 31. This is the worst bit – disassemble the main components and then treat it all with boiled linseed oil, being careful with how you dispose of the rags when finished. Boiled linseed oil is an ideal finish for this and will allow you to build up layer of protection over a number of years of use. Then reassemble in place and start potting up some plants!
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