Renovating garden bench

Without knowing what timber this is, is this bench seat saveable?
and would i need to sand it down before any kind of treatment ?

i repaired one recently & i would say it depends on what tools you have. We found one that looked as through it needed some slats replaced, but turned out nothing like that. The back side had dry rot, so i had to take out the router and make a new back section. I was pretty time consuming. Also, when i tried to take it apart, one of the screws was so firmly stuck, I damaged its hex hole and had to weld a hex thing in there to unscrew it......

Looks saveable, but it's a fair bit of work.

Very fiddly work, even if you have the right tools. If I were doing this, and wanted to maintain timber finish, I'd want to own a really good detail sander, some tiny sanding heads for a dremmel tool, and a bunch of different grits of sandpaper from 80 to 240.

One thing working in your favour is that it's not painted, and whatever protective finish it once had, looks to be mostly gone. If you're lucky, it was an oil finish, which means you're essentially working with raw material. More likely, there'll be bits of polyurethane film remaining, and you'll have to find a way to remove that.

If you're going to paint it, then paint strippers are a shortcut, and you would only need to give it a light sand before prime coat, then final coat(s) of paint.

• If you don't have the tools and are on a budget, paint it.
• If you want a natural finish, have the tools or don't mind buying them, and enjoy a bit of a project, restore it.
• If you're on a budget, don't have tools, and don't like projects, buy a new one.

wow thanks rogerwilco ! such a detailed and extremely helpful reply.
You've been an emormous help. Again thank you