After a long period of on-again-off-again work on the river bench it's finally complete. For this project, I wanted to give my magnolia tree a little company and provide a nice place to sit and rest by the basketball court. I decided to work with concrete and resin again, as well as level up on my woodworking skills. The result was something that I learned a lot from. I was able to learn how to work with rough lumber (not dimensional this time), edge joint using nothing but clamps and a circular saw, use joinery techniques that did not involve metal fasteners (aside from about 8 screws to help hold the edge-jointed legs together), concrete imprinting, and some concrete polishing.

Here's the final product:

I began this project much the same as I did for the ocean table I made earlier in the year. I first built a melamine mold for the concrete top. At this point, I had some vague ideas about what the base would be like, but nothing planned out specifically.

In order to embed the resin river in the concrete, I needed a way to sort of hollow out the river shape in the concrete. My mom had some old Play-Doh around, so I figured, why not? I just made some very large Play-Doh snakes, connected, and shaped them into what would be the river bed in the bench top. Sorry, no picture for this step, unfortunately.

I also decided to try my luck with leaf imprints. I just selected the nicest, thickest, fern leaf specimens I could find. I ended up using one from my macho fern and one from some kind of woody-stemmed fern. Again, I forgot to take a picture.

With that, the concrete was poured, the molds were vibrated for as long as I could stand, and the waiting game began. As you can see, I was pretty stoked for a successful casting:

A few days went by and it was time to take of the melamine and peek at my work. Low and behold, the casting was pretty successful. There were still some significant voids in the concrete, but all in all it was looking pretty good. Just look at those awesome Play-Doh snakes:

Looking at the fern imprints, they were a little faint due to concrete seeping in and around the leaves. Fortunately, a little scraping with the razor blade can eleviate this. Here is what it looked like before scaping much:

Next, I glued Dollar Tree medium-sized unpolished river rocks into the empty river bed. A regular crafting glue gun was more than enough to hold them in place, since they would be cast in resin anyhow:

At this point, I finished scraping out the fern leaf imprints and applied some painter's tape to the sides and bottom of the concrete where the river extended to the edge:

Sprinkling sand into the river bed with the rocks was a nice touch:

Time to pour the resin - I have mixed feelings about this part! Without the proper sanding and buffing tools, it is a pain to finish resin properly. Resin is usually sanded to a 12,000-grit finish, not fun to do by hand. This time, it looked good enough after curing so I left it be. Here's a picture just after the resin cured and the tape was removed:

Next, I wet-sanded the concrete with diamond-coated hand pads up to 3,000-grit. It was actually pretty shiny at 3,000-grit, which I liked quite a bit. I also filled the voids on the sides of the bench top, but I made the mistake of using pre-made filler. I now know what I should have done - make a slurry out of the same concrete with the aggregate removed and fill the voids with that. Lesson learned, but not soon enough. What I was left with was a somewhat marbled edge, where the filler was a lighter shade of grey compared to the concrete itself. In this picture, it is a more dramatic difference since everything was still wet. Not what I wanted, but it still looks pretty good:

Here's another look:

With the bench top more or less complete, I moved on to building out the base. For this project, I used rough cedar 2x6's. If you've ever worked with rough lumber before, you know that you may find some pretty nasty defects once you sand the rough layer off. Fortunately, I purchased some beautiful boards.

I failed to take pictures of the process, but I basically used a method similar to what Ben Uyeda has used. First, because the store I went to did not carry 2x12 cedar, I bought a couple of 2x6's instead. I then edge-jointed two segments of board for the legs, making them roughly 12" wide - enough to support the top. I then glued and pocket screwed them together. I filled the pocket holes with a combination of wood glue and cedar saw dust. After the glue dried, I cut the edge-jointed board to size for both legs and notched out two 2-1/2" rectangular cavities with a circular saw so that 2x6 stretchers would fit across the legs securely. After that, the legs were ready to be sanded first at 120-grit, then at 220-grit.

For the stretchers (the boards providing horizontal support from leg to leg), I just used 2x6's, which I notched out about 3" into the boards with a circular saw so they fit snugly into the legs. Again, the stretchers were sanded at 120-grit, then 220-grit.

Finally, I drilled holes with a 1" auger bit about 2" into the stretchers for inserting an oak dowel. This was to provide even more support and strength for the bench top. Everything was then glued into place and clamped until it all dried. Here is a picture of the complete assembly:

Overall, I'd say it looked good. There was some cupping in the legs which made assembly more difficult, and the holes drilled with the auger were not perfectly aligned, causing further difficulty. But, everything went together, and it was functional and nice to look at.

Next, the base was rubbed down with BLO, and I almost wanted to stop there.

It looked beautiful and natural, but unfortunately it was going outside, so I needed to apply some MinWax spar urethane (gloss). This way, I can preserve the natural look of the cedar and prevent it from greying over time. Although, this will need to be reapplied annually to keep the look:

Finally, I sealed the bench top with concrete sealer and attached it to the base with some 100% silicone caulk. I didn't want to permanently attach it, but I didn't want the top to fall off either. This was a good compromise. The end result was something I could be proud of, and enjoy for years to come. Here's a look:

As you can see, the marbling on the edges is much less marked after everything was sealed, dried, and placed under the tree. I hope that this article helps you in some way, whether it's inspiration, technique, or just learning what not to do if you decide to make something like this. Thanks for reading - take care!