Building Our Wedding Alter to Be Used for Our Pergola
$450.00
4 Days
Advanced
Goal: Build an Alter designed on the Golden section that will be used for our future Garden Pergola. Challenge: 2 support posts instead of 4, and easily (de-)constructed.
Day 1: All the pressure treated wood I will need to develop the project. A lot of weight to be removed. 10-ft long 6x6 posts, overkill but the added weight helps stabilize the structure.
10 total pieces, and (3) sets of identical pieces. Using a flat router bit I could get the exact same profile on all the matching sets.
Drum sander helps to create the specific arches that are based on the golden section.
Cutting the notches in the pieces to provide a more rigid connection.
Routering out an area on the pergola cross members for a future steel plate that will be used to bolt through the 6x6 post. This is an old-school ship building technique, which allows me to carry an off-set load without the need for 4 support posts.
6x6 posts are very heavy for 1 person to carry. Goal is to carve away as much meat as possible (visually and physically). Using various routering bits I was able to create the illusion of a thinner post
Close up look of all the routering cuts in the 6x6 posts.
Routered out tops of the beams for future metal tie downs. Both Decorative, and functional for keeping pergola from being pulled apart by the forces of nature.
Test your finish colors before coating your piece. We noticed that the color swatch at the store came out mud brown, and had to find a much lighter sample to get the light grey color we wanted as you can see on the lower left.
After cutting pressure treated wood you are left with a lot of exposed wood that has to be recoated with pressure treatment before covering. We used 'Woodlife - Coppercoat'.
To tone down the Green color of the pressure treatment we coated all the pieces white. First, this is Olympic Wood Sealer/Water-proofing. The final coat will be a grey-green color on all the flat faces, leaving the routered veining white to provide extra drama to the piece.
The Golden Rose support arms. These will be used as extra support, but mostly as an architectural element to enhance the design intent of the whole piece.
Added the veining into each of the rose arms. A lot of routering, and patience. These took a series of jibs, and patience with router sizes and depths. The final product to come soon!
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2 of 3 comments
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This looks like a lot of thorough, hard work! Can't wait to see your pictures!
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It looks great but it's "altar", not "alter". Thank you for sharing.
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