Contemporary Curved Green Oak Bench

Here’s another view of the benches I made last month.

The rain brings out the grain of the oak very nicely. The colour will slowly fade away to silvery grey over the course of the next year or so as the UV gets to timber.

For more information see Oxford Oak

Curved Oak Benches

Last week we finished making three curved benches for a client’s garden.

Here we are just doing the finishing touches to one of them.

I love these benches – they’re a really simple design – almost minimalist – but are both very elegant and robust.

Here’s a photo of it in the garden, just placed temporarily prior to a stone footing being laid.

Traditional Oak Pergola with curved beams

I have just finished making a large oak pergola. It’s about 35m long and consists of 16 bays. All of the beams running along the pergola, and joists running across it have a lovely gentle curve cut on them. This gives it a lighter, more graceful feel to what is essentially a very traditional pergola.

The photo shows it nearing completion. Here we still have to fit most of the braces running across the pergola – only the one in the forground has been fitted so far. The construction is my normal pegged mortice and tenon joints. I hope show you photos of the completely finished pergola soon.

For more information see Oxford Oak

Cleaning up the posts

Here’s how we clean up the posts. Most of the work is done with a draw-knife.

It’s quite hard work but the results are great as the knife tends to follow the grain of the timber closely and leaves a lovely finish.

The top is then finished with the help of a sander. These posts are going to be used for leap frog so they need to be smooth and tactile.

I’ll post a photo once they are installed.

Splitting oak logs

We are now part way through a big project making benches and other bits and pieces for a municipal park in Suffolk. Part of this is some marker posts which will run alongside pathways. We are making these out of split oak logs.

Splitting the oak is a great job. You start at one end, bashing in steel wedges with a sledge hammer.

And work your way along. We find we can split a big log like this with just three wedges. As you put the third one in, the first one becomes loose enough to pull out. For such a strong timber, it splits remarkably easily when it’s green.

And here it is in two bits. The black stains are caused by the interaction of the steel wedges and the tannic acid in the oak. You can see exactly where we placed the wedges!

Next time I’ll show you how we clean up the oak and turn them into lovely tactile posts.

I’m very pleased with this one

This morning I put the final touches to my latest Goosey bench and I must say how pleased I am with it.

Each one of these benches is slightly different. Mainly I change the design of the back panels according where the bench is going, or to fit in with a matching table design. For this bench it was just whim that led me to the W shape of the back panels. Another change I have made for this is to put a curve on the underneath of the front rail.

All in all it’s possibly the nicest one I have made. It’s not yet sold as I have made this to exhibit at a couple of shows I am doing this year.

It will be at Oxfordshire Artweeks in May, and at Art in Action in July.

Oak Picnic Tables

We have started to make a couple of green oak picnic tables for a local park. These are pretty different from your run of the mill picnic table.  The tops are made from lovely wide oak boards.

The photo shows one of the tops. These pieces have interesting grain and live knots that really liven up the surface. It is well braced underneath to stop the oak warping as it seasons. Each of the picnic tables I make is unique as I just draw out the shape by hand.

Leaning against the band saw behind are two of the benches that go with the tables – with extended legs for burying in the ground.

I’ll post another photo of the tables when they are finished.

Green oak pergola finished

Today we finished our latest green oak pergola. This is to a very traditional design with corner braces and beams across the top to provide some shade.

If you look carefully at the photo you’ll notice that the uprights seem to be floating. Actually they sit on galvanised steel stand-offs that isolate the oak posts from the ground. This has the advantage greatly extending the lifetime of the oak. Oak is pretty durable outside but it will eventually rot where it is both damp and the air can get to it – typically this is just at ground level. It takes a long time though – for posts of this size I would reckon on them lasting for 25 to 50 years if they are buried directly into soil. Isolated from the wet ground they are going to last much longer, perhaps more like 100 years.

This photo shows how the braces are fitted into each corner of the pergola. We use a traditional pegged mortice and tenon joint. The braces are essential to give the pergola rigidity. The curve cut on them is purely aesthetic but does look rather nice.

Green oak benches finished

My latest commission is for some benches for a park in Oxford. These are very simple but quite distinctive with their extended leg posts.

At the moment they are still in storage here at my workshop. The reason they are so tall is for fixing into the ground.

Here’s a picture of a curved version of the same bench installed in another park in Oxford.

 

Our latest willow dome

I have spent the last few days making a willow dome and tunnel with my friend Kate. It came out really well with a lovely onion shape and a great pattern of swirls.

Kate weaving the top of the dome

The finished dome and tunnel

The view out of the dome

We only do a few domes each winter. It makes a good change from working on wood in the workshop.

We were lucky with the weather this time. It’s been pretty mild at around 10C. Usually we seem to do it when the temperature is around freezing. Then our hands suffer!