About once a year your bench should be cleaned.  Mix 1/4 cup of TSP all purpose cleaner with 1 gallon of warm water.  Set the bench on a driveway or patio and, using a stiff-bristle brush scrub all of the surfaces thoroughly.  The bench seat and back typically take the worst beating from the elements, so give them an especially good brushing.  Rinse the bench with a strong spray from your garden hose (you can also use a pressure washer, but don’t overdo it).  Finally, set it in the sun to dry.

When your bench is completely dry, coat it with an exterior penetrating oil finish.  There are numerous commercial products available from brands like Cabot, Penofin and Sikkens, and they run from the $35 per gallon range and up.  If you can find a product in quarts, one quart will give you three rounds of refinishing.  These products also come in various tints.  Your bench was originally finished in Cabot Woodtone Deck and Siding Finish, with the tint labeled “natural”.  We suggest that you talk to a local paint retailer about your options, then follow the manufacturer’s recommendations for applying their product to your bench.

After refinishing let the new finish dry completely.  This usually takes about 24 hours.  This is a good time to snug up the 1/2 inch nuts that hold the leg assemblies together, but again, don’t overdo this.  

With regular maintenance your Leopold bench from Pleasant Lake Hardwoods should give you many years of comfortable outdoor seating.

A couple of weekends ago we had our local sawyer out for what we expected would be two days of "sawing, sweeping and stickering".  With 42 logs piled in the yard we had our work cut out for us (pun intended).  These logs had come from about a dozen trees, each one selected for a specific reason.  Some had been damaged by storms, some were growing on a fence-line, a few had been salvaged from a nearby pipeline company clear-cut, and others were removed to create better growing conditions for nearby trees.  With the exception of the salvaged logs, all had been harvested and hauled out of the woods by Bob and me.   

Starting at about 10:30 on a sunny Friday morning, the first piece tackled was an eight-foot-long,  30" diameter white oak log.  The hydraulic arms of the portable saw mill quickly moved the trunk onto the saw carriage.  Having decided to quarter-saw this particular piece, Jeff Tervol, the sawyer, began to work magic with his 40 h.p. band saw.  Soon he was pushing beautiful, clear boards off the log.   

 Five prefabricated roof trusses were then secured to the top beams, 24" apart.  Again, we used simple lap joints to build these sturdy trusses, three of these being reinforced with collar ties.  The photo at left shows the completed frame with roof sheathing attached, and partly sided.  The siding itself was also spruce (from the same tree as the framing), in widths ranging from 6 to 12 inches, which we shiplapped and nailed vertically to the frame.