StevieB
Nordic Pine
Yes, finally I have done a job that involves some woodwork! Nothing spectacular mind you, rather mundane and basic in fact, but it has been so long since I did anything involving wood it has been a real pleasure.
I help out at my sons scout group - very small group and although full of enthusiasm, not the most gifted bunch of 11 year olds I have ever met it has to be said. We managed to get some seeds for planting from a promotion Kew Gardens was running, but as we don't have any land with the scout hall we needed to make some planting boxes to go on the wall. No problem I said, I can knock something up. Oh no, wouldn't it be great if the scouts made them said someone else. Cue lots of head scratching about a safe, secure, easy design that a bunch of 11 year olds can make. They need to be able to be put together in the scout hall so screws and glue are about all we can go with, and although sawing timber is possible, doing so without proper clamps and vices is a recipe for injury. Oh and it has to be cheap (read free) as the group doesn't have any money. So the brief is - safe, easy, planting boxes made from scrap timber, but must look OK as they are going to be on public display. To keep things simple I picked up plastic troughs and decided to build a frame to hold them - saves making a base and back and saves making the things hold water and soil!
First job was actually to sort out the workshop
Have needed a pillar drill for a while now, so picked up this one from Axminster on Friday - lovely machine apart from the in built guard that also contains a safety switch - gets totally in the way of even minor drilling jobs and totally unnecessary for timber. Fortunately it is possible to remove the guard and armature and just leave the microswitch in the on position, so that is what I have done - apart from that really happy with the drill
Next job was to sort out a sled for the table saw. I picked up this old startrite some time ago, but the mitre slot is an odd size. It is only 6mm deep. It didn't come with a mitre gauge and although I bought a UKJ one from Axminster and got a piece of 6mm bar from e-bay to make a new runner, I was never happy with it. As such a sled seemed an acceptable solution. Just some 6mm birch ply with 6mm birch ply runners and an old MDF kitchen cupboard pelmet front and back. Nice and accurate and now I was ready to make a window box.
Looking at my available timber, I picked out some 34x34mm pine for a frame and some old pine bed slats for cladding. I decided to make one box so the scouts could see what the finished product was to look like, and then two sets of components for them to build their own - mostly through screwing and gluing. I simply cut the frame components to fit the plastic trough, rather than plan out dimensions in advance - in hindsight I might have been better to size things out properly in advance! Basic set-up is to build a base frame and top frame, spaced appropriately, then clad this and cap to make it look neat (and stop the trough being lifted out and stolen!). Top and bottom frame first - simple half laps cut on the table saw using the sled:
Then glued and screwed. Bottom frame has a couple of supports for the trough itself, top frame is open:
Then screw in some spacers at the right height for the trough to make a frame:
Then cut some slats to clad the outside. Started at each corner to end up in the middle, which is where measuring in advance would have been helpful. As you can see, I was left with a gap larger than a single slat, so to make it symmetrical I cut two small slivers. Each of these slats were rounded over on the edges so I also had to round over the edges on the slivers
Then to finish it off I capped the top to neaten everything up and prevent the trough being lifted out
So this is the finished example, now I just need to make two sets of components to enable the scouts to knock up something similar!
Steve
I help out at my sons scout group - very small group and although full of enthusiasm, not the most gifted bunch of 11 year olds I have ever met it has to be said. We managed to get some seeds for planting from a promotion Kew Gardens was running, but as we don't have any land with the scout hall we needed to make some planting boxes to go on the wall. No problem I said, I can knock something up. Oh no, wouldn't it be great if the scouts made them said someone else. Cue lots of head scratching about a safe, secure, easy design that a bunch of 11 year olds can make. They need to be able to be put together in the scout hall so screws and glue are about all we can go with, and although sawing timber is possible, doing so without proper clamps and vices is a recipe for injury. Oh and it has to be cheap (read free) as the group doesn't have any money. So the brief is - safe, easy, planting boxes made from scrap timber, but must look OK as they are going to be on public display. To keep things simple I picked up plastic troughs and decided to build a frame to hold them - saves making a base and back and saves making the things hold water and soil!
First job was actually to sort out the workshop
Have needed a pillar drill for a while now, so picked up this one from Axminster on Friday - lovely machine apart from the in built guard that also contains a safety switch - gets totally in the way of even minor drilling jobs and totally unnecessary for timber. Fortunately it is possible to remove the guard and armature and just leave the microswitch in the on position, so that is what I have done - apart from that really happy with the drill
Next job was to sort out a sled for the table saw. I picked up this old startrite some time ago, but the mitre slot is an odd size. It is only 6mm deep. It didn't come with a mitre gauge and although I bought a UKJ one from Axminster and got a piece of 6mm bar from e-bay to make a new runner, I was never happy with it. As such a sled seemed an acceptable solution. Just some 6mm birch ply with 6mm birch ply runners and an old MDF kitchen cupboard pelmet front and back. Nice and accurate and now I was ready to make a window box.
Looking at my available timber, I picked out some 34x34mm pine for a frame and some old pine bed slats for cladding. I decided to make one box so the scouts could see what the finished product was to look like, and then two sets of components for them to build their own - mostly through screwing and gluing. I simply cut the frame components to fit the plastic trough, rather than plan out dimensions in advance - in hindsight I might have been better to size things out properly in advance! Basic set-up is to build a base frame and top frame, spaced appropriately, then clad this and cap to make it look neat (and stop the trough being lifted out and stolen!). Top and bottom frame first - simple half laps cut on the table saw using the sled:
Then glued and screwed. Bottom frame has a couple of supports for the trough itself, top frame is open:
Then screw in some spacers at the right height for the trough to make a frame:
Then cut some slats to clad the outside. Started at each corner to end up in the middle, which is where measuring in advance would have been helpful. As you can see, I was left with a gap larger than a single slat, so to make it symmetrical I cut two small slivers. Each of these slats were rounded over on the edges so I also had to round over the edges on the slivers
Then to finish it off I capped the top to neaten everything up and prevent the trough being lifted out
So this is the finished example, now I just need to make two sets of components to enable the scouts to knock up something similar!
Steve
The marks on the base are mould marks I suspect, certainly not anything integral to the structure of the trough anyway.