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by
Paul Lewis
photos: Roger Yip
illustration: Len Churchill |
CONCRETE BENCH |
Create
the look of stone with a sleek benchtop
cast from ordinary concrete |
Some of my
favourite projects are those that raise lowly materials to lofty
heights. Even a close inspection of the stone-like benchtop
may not reveal its humble beginnings: a single 20-kg bag of
sand-mix concrete. The secret to making the concrete look so
good is all in the form. Casting the slab upside-down in a melamine-coated
particleboard form gives the concrete a convincing, stone-like
finish, and its gently bevelled sides make the slab appear lighter.
Good Form
Start the project by building the form for casting the concrete.
Cut the base of the form to size using a tablesaw with the blade
tilted 30° from vertical for the cuts on all four of the
form base’s sides. Make sure the top of the bevel is facing
up so that it doesn’t slip under the fence as you make
the cuts.
 |
| Relax
in the sunshine and enjoy the beauty of this all-weather
bench made of outdoor-friendly cedar and concrete |
|
Next, tilt
the blade back to vertical and rip the sides of the form to
width. Cut the long sides to length. Attach them to the base
with 15/8"-long drywall screws spaced about 6" apart.
Let the sides run long past the ends of the base. Don’t
use glue here since the form needs to come apart later. Carefully
drive the screws straight in—if you get too close to an
edge, the screw will bubble the particleboard outward. This
kind of imperfection will mirror in the concrete. Also, remember
that the concrete top is cast upside down, so position the sides
angled in toward the open top of the form.
Complete the form by cutting the short sides at a compound angle
that fits into the long sides tightly. Cross cut the sides to
length, using a compound mitre saw with the blade tipped to
approximately 15° from vertical and the table rotated to
28°. Attach them to the form with more drywall screws. Mix
the concrete and fill the form before moving on to the support
structure. (See “In
the Mix”).
Legs to Stand On
The concrete benchtop sits on a curved and tapered cedar support
structure that’s connected with mortise-and-tenon joinery.
Begin by preparing the legs. Saw off the factory-rounded edges
of a 4x4 using your tablesaw, then rip the material to the final
size of 2 1/2" x 2 1/2". Cross cut the legs to length
with a chopsaw.
Next, lay out your mortise locations, two per leg, according
to the plans. Use a 1"-diameter Forstner bit mounted in
a drillpress to remove the bulk of the material for the 3"-tall
x 1"-wide x 1"-deep mortises. Square up the sides
of the mortises with a sharp chisel.
Next, lay out the tapers on the mortised sides of the legs and
rough-cut them with a bandsaw. Clean up the tapers with a couple
of passes over a jointer, or you could use a hand plane or random-orbit
sander. Just be careful not to let the taper creep up the leg
to where it might interfere with the rails.
Rip the rails to width from 2x6 stock, then cross cut them to
length. As you’re planning your cuts, keep in mind that
you should remove the mill-rounded edges on these pieces.
Next, lay out 1"-long tenons on the ends of each rail and
a couple of pieces of scrap wood of the same thickness. Cut
tenons on the ends of a piece of scrap using the mitre gauge
on your tablesaw fitted with a dado blade. Use these scrap pieces
to get the machine settings correct before you cut your rails.
Next, lay out the gentle curve on the bottoms of the long rails.
I like to use a thin strip of straight-grained maple for this
job. Just drive a couple of brads into the rail and bend the
strip up to form the curve. Mark the curve with a pencil and
cut it out on a bandsaw. For symmetry, use the newly-cut rail
as a template to mark the second rail. Clean up the bandsaw
cuts on a spindle sander or with a handheld belt sander. The
curve is shallow enough that you can use the front of the belt
sander to get in where you need to.
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PART 1 | PART 2 | PART
3 |
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