• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Recent voluntary job

Coley

Coley

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Back in the day when me and my pals use to hit the weekends hard there was always someone who use to pull us back down to reality. Every Sunday my friends auntie use to set us up for a proper hearty Sunday roast. Many family of hers had passed away and she always used to comment her bench at 'The graveyard' was always getting pooped on by birds. She had a bench made many moons ago that was dedicated to one of her family that had recently passed on. I remember saying one day that I'd cut off the branch where the birds sat (&shat) but never came through with my...... drunken promise. After being 4 + years sober it was always something that bugged the 5hit out of me . The other week the pal of mine asked if I'd renovate said bench- I fetched it the following day without hesitation !
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Not sure if it was my ignorance or what but I always thought it was past it and many times offered to just make new.
After I got the nod I set to work sanding away all the layers of crap I immediately grew a fondness to the tired old bench- turns out it was 30+ years old. from a cost point of view it wasn't cost effective to do
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In terms of job satisfaction though. .......
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I don't think I will ever match how good a fee I felt after.
Really not meant as a boast, just so happy to be able to do something so little for someone who did so much for me - thankyou Annie !
 
Thanks for the comments guys [emoji6]

Phil, I used teak sadolins. Green tin basecoat, two orange tin top coats then 2 coats of clear extra durable sadolins. Im hoping this should offer enough protection for a few years or atleast make wiping the bird mess off easier.
While I was waiting for the resin to cure to bolt the bench down I had a look around the rest of the graveyard.
I found this bench near the entrance of the church
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I cant imagine it's been used for years as several of the slats had completely rotten - some replaced with different ones varying in thickness. I didn't really need another project but felt this one would benefit from a little tlc- being near the entrance it should at least look inviting [emoji3]
I started from scratch and machined new slats from idigbo
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I've got the two coats of extra durable to do but enthusiasm is quickly deteriorating on this one.
I blasted the ends back to bare metal then found an old tin of black hammerite which should hopefully provide some protection. - seems much better formula compared to the modern stuff [emoji10]
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The bench seemed quite long to be only supported at each end and I wonder if pushing on the slats to help get up may have contributed to some of the slats breaking. I've seen similar benches with a metal strip to help tie the slats together so decided it was worth making one for the middle
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All the bolts had completely rusted so I ordered stainless coachbolts to....bling it up a bit [emoji4] hopefully have it finished for Wednesday and 100% not looking for anything else to do out there [emoji3] This one really has seemed a chore.

Coley
 
Cheers Rod, its only sanding and flicking around a paint brush though [emoji6]
The first bench was something I just had to do and I turned it around in 10 days in time for the anniversary of her mums passing. The other bench will have took best part of 3 weeks as I just haven't had the enthusiasm/driving force to finish it quickly. It'd be nice to think one day I'll drive past and see people using it, I hope they do- it was a lovely sunny day when I went to collect it. Just finished another coat, last coat tomorrow morning and assembly Wednesday.
It does look a bit shiny/plasticy at the moment, hopefully a few months out in the sun will knock it back a bit....

Coley
 
Cheers Rod, its only sanding and flicking around a paint brush though [emoji6]
The first bench was something I just had to do and I turned it around in 10 days in time for the anniversary of her mums passing. The other bench will have took best part of 3 weeks as I just haven't had the enthusiasm/driving force to finish it quickly. It'd be nice to think one day I'll drive past and see people using it, I hope they do- it was a lovely sunny day when I went to collect it. Just finished another coat, last coat tomorrow morning and assembly Wednesday.
It does look a bit shiny/plasticy at the moment, hopefully a few months out in the sun will knock it back a bit....

Coley
 
Hi Coley,

You've done a lovely job on the wood bench mate. Lucky to have to replace only one small section of wood. You've rescued it just in time. Looks lovely when it's all sanded and dusted down. And it's good to see you've used a quality varnish. It'll last for years before it needs attending.

I've restored quite a few benches at the place I do some work at (an architecutal ironworks, specialising in Georgian, Regency and Victorian fireplaces, benches, gates, railings etc). So if you need to know anything, just ask. I've restored a bench excactly like the 2nd one here. It's a 1950s/1960s open end bench. Great to see you've gone to the trouble of grit-blasting the metal, the paint adhere better and will last a lot longer. And the centre strap will help. Also good to see you've used Stainless steel coachbolts. That's what we always use. When zinc galvanised bolts are used, they are usually the first to deteriorate and rust, which spreads to the metal frame, and ruins all the hard work done.

If you're going to do anymore exterior metal painting, I recommend using the Sigma range of paints as they are far superior to Hammerite and any other product I've seen. The ones I use are warranteed to last at least 15 years, and I've seen things that were painted 20 years ago, installed near the seaside, and are still sound and rust free.

Cheers,
fred
 
Wonderful story Coley and I agree with Graham, you're going to receive some good karma.

Hope you stick with it 8-)
 
Have to be honest it only had 4 coats cause it got the better of me. Had a pal help lift it from the van and it seemed to settle in the previous divots in the ground pretty well.
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I know i should have gave it another coat but it really zapped my energy. Every June I'll try and give it and the original bench a quick once over with the brush. School report would read- " should have tried harder " [emoji3]
Coley
 
There are going to be a lot of very happy people sitting on that bench. Good on you for doing it and a cracking job too
 
Wow! That looks fantastic! Almost too nice to sit on!
4 coats should be enough. Primer, undercoat and 2 top coats is the norm for a professional painter. Looks like it's in a sheltered corner, and will only need a yearly maintenance of cleaning and possibly a little touch-up from any knocks or scrapes.

You now need to make a plaque to go above the bench "The Coley Bench"

cheers
fred
 
Thanks for the compliments guys. Im glad it's finished and hopefully getting a few bums using it [emoji3]
 
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