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00:05 Speaker 1: G'day, knuckleheads!
Uncle Knackers here.
Get this.
I was driving down the road the other day and I came across a fencing contractor, who
was throwing this beautiful old hardwood fence panel into the back of his ute.
I said, "Hey mate, what are you doing with that?"
And he goes, "Ah, I'm just gonna take it down to the tip or maybe burn it."
I said, "What?"
I said, "I'll tell you what, how about I take it off your hands and save you the trip of
going to the tip?"
He said, "Beautiful.
Job's done."
So, I threw it in the back of the ute and took it home, because underneath this exterior,
is some beautiful old hardwood, and I think with a bit of TLC, I should be able to knock
something out pretty nice.
00:47 S1: Just what, I'm not quite sure yet.
How about one of those bench chair thingies?
You know?
Yeah!
A bench chair thingy.
Done!
Now, for this project, we're going to need 10 of these palings, and to remove the paling
from the rail, you can just use a hammer and gently tap it off, but they are prone to splitting.
A method that I like to use, if you've got one of course, is a reciprocating saw with
a metal cutting blade.
Just insert the blade between the paling and the rail and let the blade do the work.
I'll show you how to do it.
[pause]
01:43 S1: Okay, the first thing we need to do, is to remove these old nails, and we do
that with the aid of a hammer and a punch.
[pause]
02:10 S1: There you go.
Too easy.
Now, what we wanna do now, is just take a light little shaving of this board.
Just a touch.
So, grab your planer, whether it's a hand planer or an electric planer.
You can almost guarantee that when you do a video outside, you get a jet flying overhead,
maybe a dog barking or a flock of birds flying over or the guy next door decides that it's
a really good time to start tuning his car, and then, the lawn mower man turns up and
starts mowing the lawn.
It's amazing.
02:47 S1: So anyway, like I said, grab your planer, put on some protective equipment,
ear muffs and goggles, just give this a little bit of a touch-up.
I reckon that's just about right.
You still got some of the old age which you can't replicate, some of the old greyness,
and a bit of the new stuff coming through.
So, just repeat that process with the rest of the boards, then, we'll start knocking
out this chair or this bench thingy.
Let's go.
So, I've planed the boards down and now, it's time to cut to length and maybe, get rid of
some of this daggy stuff.
And I've calculated, and the maximum length I can get out of each of these boards is about
1340 millimetres.
So, we need to cut three of those, and for the legs, I need to cut, let's see, eight
at 500 millimetres.
Okay, let's do that.
[pause]
04:06 S1: Okay, I've cut the legs, eight in total, and from end-to-end, they're 500 millimetres
long.
Or in Imperial, if I get my little tape measure out, that's about 19 inches.
And you'll also notice that I ran a taper down one side.
Now, from the top of the leg to the start of the taper is six inches which is about
150 millimetres, running down to the end here, which is 45 to 50 millimetres, which is about
two inches.
So, there you have it.
Legs are cut, tops are cut, and now, all we need to do is build a very simple frame and
put the whole thing together.
04:45 S1: Come on.
So, here's the frame that I've just knocked up, all out of palings.
Leave the palings there.
And these here, these supports are the rails from that fence panel, that we pulled apart.
This here is going to be the seat, the top, and this here, two of those legs that we've
cut, we've glued and nailed together to form one leg.
And it goes on like this, by applying a generous amount of woodworkers' glue to the inside
of the leg and then, line it up on the frame.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, and nail it off.
Do that for the other three legs, and job's done.
And then, it's time to now top off, and we'll put a nice finish.
[pause]
05:57 S1: So, there you go, the top's on, and I must say, it's looking pretty good.
Now, you also noticed that I've sparingly put down some teal paint on the top here,
most of that is gonna be sanded off in the final sand and all that will be left is hints
of green or teal in these cracks or in these knot holes and it needs a good sand, because
you don't wanna get any splinters in our bum.
So, anyway, let's get sanding.
06:26 S1: So, I've done the final sand and it's come up absolutely beautiful and the
only thing left to do, is to put a coat of clear marine grade satin varnish across the
whole lot, probably two or three coats.
And then, when that's all done, it should be all finished, happy days.
Yeah, three coats of varnish later and we transformed these old palings into this.
Ooh wee!
Check it out.
Now, I don't wish to brag, but I think it's turned out really well considering where it
came from only a short time ago.
I think the end result is spot on.
It's nice and rustic which is what I was after.
It's got the old nail holes there and I think there's just enough hint of that teal coming
through there and then going over the top.
It's nice and solid and I think it's a project well within everybody's capabilities.
So, the next time when you're driving around and you stumble across some old fence palings,
take them home and have a crack, your friends will be very very impressed.
07:46 S1: So, there you go, how to make one of those bench seat thingies out of old fence
palings.
What a top project?
Great tip, Knackers!
And as per usual, if you found this video useful, subscribe to my channel, the button's
down there; thumbs up, the button's down there as well.
And I'm also on that Facebook thingy at DIY for knuckleheads, check that one out as well.
Now, don't go just yet, because there'll be photos going backwards and forwards of this
little baby for all it's glory.
So, 'til next time, I'm out of here, cheers.
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