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Outdoor sofa (lemmy.world)

Outdoor sofa to replace our falling-apart fake-plastic-wicker one, reusing the same cushions.

sofa with cushions

It's roughly following Wilker Do's Outdoor Sofa plans, however I adjusted the size, changed from a two-layer construction to lap joints / mortise-and-tenon joints, and filled in some missing details.

First time hand-cutting mortise and tenons, for the arm rest supports:

mortise and tenon

First time making half-lap joints, for the side frames; very happy with my new Infinity Tools Dadonator:

dado blade

half lap joints

After some attempts at CAD, I ended up just cutting out scale paper parts and then measuring angles/lengths to fit them together. It mostly worked, but some lengths didn't work out in wood.

plans

I used western red cedar for rot resistance, since this will sit unsheltered. I haven't finished it yet, I'm considering poly, boiled linseed, or Thompson's water seal (glad for recommendations). First time working with cedar, it's very soft and scratch prone, smells great, and is noticeably lighter than pine. Also pricey; one thing I didn't like about this design is it is fairly overbuilt.

side view

top view

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[-] fubarx@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

The angles on those arm-rests! ๐Ÿ˜

[-] pageflight@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

Yeah, those were a real pain, but I'm very pleased with the look. Band saw rough cut, hand planed smooth. I couldn't figure out how to set up a jig on the table saw.

[-] Reasonable_Guy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

I think the way to do these on a table saw would be to use a tapering jig with the blade set at 90 degrees to get the rough shape. That would allow you to flip one to get a mirrored version. Then tilt your blade and run them through again using a bevel jig that saddles over the fence

[-] pageflight@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Sounds very reasonable. (-:

And, seems like I need to make some more jigs! That's usually the answer.

this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2025
71 points (100.0% liked)

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