Park Bench

Try to ... it's probably your best bet unless you can find redwood, teak or cypress more easily.

Greg O wrote: > I friend on mine has a wrought iron park bench he wants me to cut some wood > for. > The question has come up, "Which wood?".

RUN, don't walk away from this one.

The difference in thermal expansion between metal and wood can be as high as 1 mm/12".

No matter what you do, it will come back to bite you.

Lew

Hundreds of thousands ... there's over a hundred in this neighborhood alone.

I did this for a customer about 6 years ago. I used Ipe. The benches are still in great shape and I suspect they will be with no splinters for another 45 years with no protection.

BTY Ipe is readily available at most any lumber yard that sells quality decking.

Assuming that the existing wood slats need replacing, I've BTDT... and never will again...

You have to use hardwood.. pine will NOT handle the load unless it's too thick to use on the bench... I wasted a lot of time and money finding out that it's a LOT cheaper and easier to pay $30 or so for a new one.... Mac

I just used fir 2by4's ripped and planed to size, painted white, of which looked reasonably good with the sandblasted painted black old cast iron ends. I rabbeted the board ends to fit the groves on the cast iron so I could fit thicker material than the original oak or oak wannabe....plenty strong and still holding 2 years later. Rod

It would help to know where your local yard is located.

In Southern CA Doug Fir would be fine. In Washington Western Red Cedar, in the Southeast cypress, in Pennsylvania black walnut, in Texas Bodark, in Panama Mahogany, in Thailand teak.

The others adequately addressed the "which species" question. What I suspect the OP really needs to know (although he didn't ask it) is where?, rather than what?

"the local yard" is the wrong answer. Look up "hardwood" in your yellow pages. Regular lumber yards generally don't carry much beyond SPF (spruce/pine /fir).

-Steve

Most lumber yards carry Ipe Decking.

My favourites (UK) for outside work would be larch or sweet chestnut. Larch is tougher and cheaper, if there's any risk of vandalism in a public space - chestnut is a bit fragile.

There are several other cedars and cypresses worth looking at, depending on local supply. Assuming that the work here is to provide simpel rectangular laths and round the edges a bit, then it's not necessary to go with exotics - just replace them every decade or two.