Window Seat - Wookworking Champion advice needed

[bellstreet_Sio]

Hi Everyone! recently joined as I am in need of some advice.

Recently covered 4 walls of brick in my living room, and had this seat structure left from previous owner. I want to cover the slate

with a single piece of wood. Simple enough. Except, I am finding that lengths come in standard 2400mm and the actual measurements is 2510mm. Depth of the seat is 480mm, but would like a small lip/overhang so rounding up to 500mm. 

Has anyone had any success with special orders from Bunnings for custom benchtops or wood? open to ideas and suggestions. 

[MitchellMc]

Welcome to the Workshop community @bellstreet_Sio. It's fantastic to have you join us and many thanks for your question.

You could take a single Kaboodle 2400 x 600 x 36mm Hevea Timber Benchtop cutting it in half and inserting some 110 x 19mm x 3.0m Tasmanian Oak Dressed All Round DAR Select Grade (doubled up) as a graving piece. That would give you the length and might look quite interesting.

Customer benchtops are always an option and certainly worth considering if you would like a single piece of timber.

Let me mention @Brad, @prettyliving and @ProjectPete  to see if they might like to offer some input to the discussion.

Mitchell

[Brad]

Tough length to deal with.

I would go with 65 x 32mm x 3-0m tasmanian oak dressed all round dar select grade. 8 lengths will give you 520mm width.

Cheaper option would be construction grade untreated pine but it is a lot of work to take off the round corners and find straight pieces with limited knots, tinted stain would work.

I use aluminium bar clamps as steel reacts with the PVA glue leaving black stains which can be a pain if that ends up being the good side, some glues will also stick to the aluminium bars despite manufactures claims.

[redracer01]

Hello @bellstreet_Sio 

I think @MitchellMc suggestion is fantastic and pragmatic! You get to keep the costs down and have a fantastic looking window seat. The default size of the timber bench tops are 2400 but you are not too far away from covering the difference with extra timber. You will not need overly complicated tools to join these timber pieces to the main bench top, standard tools will suffice. I've attached a visual drawing of @MitchellMc's idea, have a think about it. Enjoy your DIY and be safe.

Cheers,

Red

[MitchellMc]

Hi @redracer01.

I was actually thinking of having one joining piece in the middle, but I MUCH prefer your idea of two pieces one on each side. I'm not sure why I didn't think of that in the first place.

Mitchell

[Jason]

Great to see you get the advice you needed from some "woodworking champions" @bellstreet_Sio. Welcome to the community. We're really looking forward to seeing this project completed. I'm sure the window seats are going to look fantastic.

Please let me know if you ever need a hand getting the most from the site. 

Jason