Next Project

With the new workbench completed... at least through phase one, I started a new honey-do project of building a porch swing for our front porch. Having a large flat surface to work on things has certainly made this a more enjoyable project than it would have been.

At this point, I am starting to put the seat assembly together. I went in circles in my mind a bit on what to build this porch swing. Many are made of various hard wood like oak and painted. I wanted ours to be stained wood with some character. I ended up going with cedar since cedar deck boards are fairly plentiful right now and reasonably priced but I have some concerns. Cedar is not the strongest of woods and with defects, even less strong. But it is light and looks beautiful when done. So I am trying to make sure all the joints are strong and that the pieces tie everything together to make the assembly as a whole as strong as possible.

Part of that means gluing the joints as well as adding mechanical fasteners. But with the high humidity of summer, the glue dry time is extended and it has been a slow process. It all works out since I have essentially an unconditioned garage so I can only spend so much time out there on any given hot summer day without dying of dehydration. In fact, due to the weather and various family vacations, I have barely made any progress beyond what you see above as I write this nearly three weeks later. But the heat of summer is shortly on the downswing, no pun intended, and I should be able to get some more work done in the upcoming weeks.