Drift Redwood Bench Build #5: The longest cut

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I’ve had a bit of a hiatus from posting updates on my bench build, but it’s not for lack of effort. After a lot of thinking I decided to build a metal base for the bench. This will keep with the theme that my work and, by default, our house is developing. It also allows me to develop my metalworking skills.

I found a phenomenal local metal supplier. They have an entire section of the store devoted to pre-cut shorts. Just about their entire inventory is represented in one and three foot (0.3 and 0.9 meter) sections. This lets me get my hands on the inventory and get a feel for how certain shapes and sizes will fit with my project at hand without the worry of raising the ire of the production oriented customers/employees. Also, it’s sold by weight and the price is very reasonable when I’ve compared it to other on-line discounters; factor in the no shipping and it’s a bargain.

For the bench I decided to got with inch and a half bar-stock; it’s beefy, about 10 pounds (4.5 kilos per foot). I cut it in half without out to much fuss, so I decided to tackle a pretty aggressive cut. You can see the outline in the below picture. The goal for the one side of the bench is to make a trestle style base with a single center support. The bottom leg (what I am cutting) would then taper over it’s length to about 0.25 inches

Little did I know I was about to embark on a 2 week ordeal that would test the limits of my patience and sanity. Much like the tortoise I persisted; there were a few marathon hour plus sessions, but mostly it was done in 15 or 20 minute chunks.

Tonight, I finally broke through and completed one of the two cuts

I’d have to estimate my progress was about 0.2 inches per hour which works out to about 6 or 7 hours per cut. I almost broke down and purchases a sawzall but dropping a good $120 on a tool that is not going to see much use was hard to swallow. Plus, the remainder of the work is going to require me to finally invest in a drill press and a couple Blacksmith tools, as well as some outsourcing to a local welder, so money saved that can then be applied to those is a win for me.

I’ve still got the other side left, but I would estimate that is 80% complete. Once both cuts are made I need to clean things up and make sure the cut is nice and level; mercifully, I can resort to my arsenal of power tools.

There is a lot of work and a lot of learning ahead for this project. Thanks for reading.

Source: LumberJocks.com

Drift Redwood Bench Build #5: The longest cut