Wood work question

Lets say I bought two railway sleepers and 3 times 4x4 posts, with the intention of making a sort of staggered, two level bench thing. The idea being that one sleeper sits with one end on top of a post driven into the ground, the other end has a hole through which the post comes so that the other sleep can sit on top of that, with the third post at the other end.

How would one go about making a 4x4 square hole right through a sleeper, with very limited equipment?

I have a drill with a decent assortment of bits, a jigsaw but I don't think the blade would be long enough to go through a sleeper, and the budget probably extends to a few extra cheap tools (thinking chisels perhaps?).

 

With great difficulty.
Especially it it is a real railway sleeper.

Drill, and chisel is possible.
But someone with a proper morticer would be able to do it.

 

I've just looked up 'morticer', I don't think I know anyone that has anything like that.

It wont be a genuine railway sleeper, just the comparable sized chunks of wood that all self respecting DIY and gardening chain stores are selling these days.

 

Well in engineering I have used machining heads called polygon boxes. Which can machine squares or any shape you want . In woodworking as Pete said a mortice device is used as below.
I would avoid large square holes in any design as the kit is a little expensive and not something you would use every week !
http://www.woodmagazine.com/woodwor...ng-boring/how-a-mortiser-drills-square-holes/

 

Mark out what you want and find a small local joinery, we do this kind of thing for 20 quid in the tea money.
But its a long way for you to come.

 

Do you need to have the post running through the sleeper?
Why not cut the post into 2 parts, sit the sleeper on the bottom part & then fix the other part of the post on top.

 

Clueless do you need the hole? Could you not cut the sleepers similar to the way they make log cabins.

 

I don't know if I'd achieve the stability I need if I do that. The thing is, its not simply a bench that I'm planning, well it is, but it is multi-purpose. The plan is for the back garden to also be a sort of gymn, and the stepped bench thing will be used for step-ups, sit-ups and crunches, and balancing practice, so it will take a bit of punishment. As it will take force from more angles than the simple straight down that a seat mostly takes, I'm not sure I'd get the strength and stability needed if the vertical parts were in multiple parts.

I don't know. How do they do log cabins?

 

More log joints than you can shake a stick at ... or a log even !
Youtube never ceases to amaze me - is there any subject you can't get a how to video of?

 

@Mr Jane should hopefully be able to help you out.

Personally I wouldn't bother trying to make a 4x4 mortise and would instead make it much simpler myself.

 

FC , now that is a very handy tool! It shows some amazing cutting videos on the webpage. The pocket cut was magic !

 

My very own log cabin in miniature that I built.

Each individual log has a concave cut out of the bottom at both ends.