# Garden Clotches - Finally Finished



## brianhabby (6 Apr 2009)

Hi there,

I've been asked by a friend at work to make some frames _(I'm calling them clotches)_ that are to go over a grow bag and then to be covered in somekind of netting.

I recently salvaged some wood from a fire, it was going to finish up on the builders woodburning stove but he let me have my pick first. heres some of it:







Don't think the moisture content is too high  

After de-nailing & cutting on the table saw this is what I finished up with:






I got some about 1½" x 1½" and some about 1½" x ¾", I don't think I've cut enough of the smaller section though so will have to dig out a bit more from the pile in the garage.

The idea is to make a simple frame approximately 42" x 15" then an upright in each corner which joins to another simple frame at the top holding it all together. Imagine a box without any sides :? 

Anyway, I had this bright idea that if the uprights were angled by about 10 degrees inwards then they could be stackable when not in use.

The simple frames I plan to join together with half lap joints but I plan to join the uprights to the frames using M&T. Now, because the uprights are angled this makes cutting the tenons - shall we say - interesting.

I had a go with cutting a tenon on the TS but am not happy with the result. I tried to take some photos of my efforts but the battery died in the camera. I did take some with the mobile phone but they are rubbish and not worthy of this forum so we'll have to wait for the battery charger to do its stuff.

What would be the best way to cut tenons on an angle like this? I'm beginning to think that a router jig may be the way to go but can't get my head around how to design it.

regards

Brian


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## ByronBlack (6 Apr 2009)

Hi Brian,

I've just made three of these for 'her indoors' for her veggie patches. I didn't bother with joints, I just used screwed some angle brackets on the inside of the frame, and strengthened with a small angle piece across each joint.

For the top part, I glued some 4" high hardwood dowels into each corner, and used some plastic piping (Blue MDPE Polythene pipe from screwfix) to make an arch at each end, with the piping fitting over the doweling. Enviromesh is then fitted over the piping and stapled to the frame creating a mini polytunnel type closh.

I can post some pics tomorrow. I know this isn't how you are going to make yours, but it might be useful to you or others in some way.


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## Joints (7 Apr 2009)

brianhabby":2xdl5g8k said:


> After de-nailing & cutting on the table saw this is what I finished up with:



You de-nail on your saw? Nice!


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## brianhabby (7 Apr 2009)

Joints":tx6ldwlt said:


> brianhabby":tx6ldwlt said:
> 
> 
> > After de-nailing & cutting on the table saw this is what I finished up with:
> ...



Mmmm - wasn't quite meant to read like that ... :lol: 

Mind you the state of that wood did mean that some nails did in fact get missed - good job I was using an old blade. There's no way this stuff is getting anywhere near my planer blades.

Byron

I'm quite sure my friend would be happy no matter how I joined the wood together, just so long as it holds the netting in place. It was my decision to complicate matters by using joints, and it would be nice to suceed if I can find a way.

The cut end of the timber looks like this with a compound cut:






I tried cutting a tenon on the TS, not aiming for any kind of accuracy, just trying to get a feel for how it would work. Each shoulder and each cheek cut has to have a different setup, either the angle of the saw blade needs changing or the mitre gauge or both.

This is what it looks like:






I think if I could figure out a way to cut this with a router then setup should only need to be done once - any ideas anyone...?

regards

Brian


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## thomvic (7 Apr 2009)

Brian

My advice is keep it simple. A front and a back frame using the 1.5" square for uprights and 1.5" x .75" for the horizontals. Half lap joints for the corners are ideal - screwed and glued. Uprights angled as you like. Mark out with a bevel gauge and cut with a hand saw. Join the front and back frames together with end hoizontals top and bottom 1" x .75" - just butted and screwed onto the frames Create the angle you want by having the top sides shorter than the bottom ones.
A simple construction like this doesn't call for sophisticated joints or tools.

Good luck

Richard


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## xy mosian (7 Apr 2009)

A truly fun job. If it is going to be tricky setting up the table saw, how about doing by hand? After all there is a special saw for the job. Tenon Saw :lol: :lol:


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## brianhabby (7 Apr 2009)

xy mosian":prqno6ic said:


> A truly fun job. If it is going to be tricky setting up the table saw, how about doing by hand? After all there is a special saw for the job. Tenon Saw :lol: :lol:



Yeah, I'm sure I've got one of those somewhere. It may be that is the way to go with this one but since I've got 5 clotches to make with 4 uprights on each clotch and two tenons on each upright - my math makes that 40 tenons to cut, I think a power tool jig would ensure greater accuracy.

I'll keep working on it but won't rule out doing it by hand  

regards

Brian


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## xy mosian (8 Apr 2009)

That's quite a few tenons! 
However, not to make a career out of a project. How about cutting all the shoulders in one pass on the compound chop saw. Then use a dowel for the tenon itself, preferably drilling the hole while the end of the timber is still square. If you really want a square tenon then the dowel sides could be flattened parallel with the sides of the 'uprights' with a simple router jig, taking care not to damage the shoulders.

Hope that did not confuse.

xy


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## OPJ (8 Apr 2009)

So, this stuff has already been on a fire? :shock: Just goes to show that, while the outside is all charred, there's plenty of good and usable timber waiting underneath. :wink:

With all those angles and no dedicated tenonning machine, this does sound like one job where it may be easier to use *dowels*... :shock:


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## brianhabby (8 Apr 2009)

Dowels - never thought about that. Thanks xy.

See - this forum, as usual, has come up with a great answer :lol: 

I'll let you know what transpires this weekend.

regards

Brian


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## brianhabby (8 Apr 2009)

Olly,

There is some more in my garage but most of it was too far gone to consider salvage and the builder doing the repairs took it for his wood burning stove - better than wasting valuable skip space.

The main problem I found with it was the nails as they were difficult to spot and some got left in and you don't find out until the sparks start flying from the TS blade.  

It's also pretty mucky working with it - the workshop has got a thin film of black dust everywhere from cutting.

Still, it was free :lol: 

regards

Brian


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## brianhabby (10 Apr 2009)

Well this is what I've done this afternoon. After sorting through the wood and cutting the lengths that I needed this is what I finished up with:






Interestingly this is all I had as offcuts:






I cut the compound angles on the uprights using the table saw and mitre gauge:






The half lap joint for the frames were next and the shoulder cuts were also done on the table saw with the help of the mitre gauge:






The cheek cuts were done using the tenon jig on the table saw:






After making all those cuts it was time for a little glue-up and this is how I left the job when I finished:






I think I've decided to go for dowels for joining the uprights to the frames, all I've got to do now is figure out how to hold the angled pieces in place while I drill for the dowels.

More to follow

regards

Brian


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## xy mosian (13 Apr 2009)

Hi Brian,
Sorry if this is too late.
I have always had difficulty drilling down end grain, the hole seems to take a path of its own choosing. Least resistance I suppose. That said I think a Forstner bit, with its continous reference to the existing, just drilled hole, could be a good option. Now for jigging the operation.

How about using a lathe? If you have one of course. Forstner bit in the chuck and a 'V' shaped cradle mounted on the bed to allow your work to be dropped in place and manually pushed onto the drill. This would be almost as quick as picking pieces up to use on a pillar drill I think. Health and Safety might not approve, but a gaurd around the chuck etc. would help.

If you don't have a lathe. How about setting up a similar operation with a power drill set in some form of suitable cradle?

Best of luck 
xy


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## ByronBlack (13 Apr 2009)

I realise these are no good to you now, but seeing as we are on the subject, here are the photo's I should have uploaded a while ago in case anyone wants a quick/cheap way of making these:






and here's a pic of the 'joinery' 






SWMBO is going to be stapling some netting over the thing to make it into a mini poly-tunnel kind of thing. I made three of these for her, and they were very cheap and easy to make.

The piping is attached by gluing 14m hardwood dowels 1" into the 2x2 pine and slipping the piping over the top, which are then glued and screwed to hold in place.


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## brianhabby (13 Apr 2009)

Well, I've finally finished these clotches  

xy,

I think your idea of using the lathe would have worked quite well, but it never occured to me. Anyway my lathe is not setup for use yet. Another one of those jobs _to do_.

Byron,

Thanks for posting your pics, I can see the simplicity in what you did and if it does the job then that is all that is needed really. My friend would have been more than happy with what you did. I guess I've complicated my project somewhat but it was my choice to make it more complicated than it needed to be - this woodwork is a labour of love after all :lol: 

As sugested above I decided to go with the dowels as a means of joining the top and bottom frames with the uprights. The first issue I had in joining the pieces together was finding a drill that matches a dowel  

I bought a length of 21mm dowel which I though was about the right diameter, then went looking for a drill bit. I have a 22mm forstner and various spade bits but nothing 21mm. So I then drilled a series of different sized holes in a bit of wood and took this with me to the shop selling the dowel, I'm bound to find something that matches me thinks - but no. Even the 25mm dowel was very loose in the hole drilled with a 25mm forstner bit :? If anything I would have expected it to be tight.

So off I go to a little hardware store at the other end of town and asked him for any size dowel and drill to match. His reply was that I will not find them because the dowel sizes are nominal due to variances in manufacture.

His solution was to take a normal spade bit that is undersize and file or grind the point so that it is off centre. This makes the opposing cutting edge a bit further away, hence a slightly larger hole.

I followed his idea and it worked perfectly  You just need to to be careful to only file the point a little at a time and keep trying it until you get a nice fitting dowel hole.

Drilling the holes in the frames was fairly straight forward. I assembled a jig on the drill stand and clamped each corner in place while drilling the hole, thus:






So now - how do I hold the uprights while drilling a hole at a 10 degree compound angle? Well this is what I came up with - not very elegant but it worked:






I had to be careful when drilling the hole that I kept the drill as straight as possible. I used a square to help line up the drill bit while drilling and then dry fitted the dowel before drilling the next hole.

Drilling the holes to fit the top frame was a lot easier with the bottom frame dry fitted. I clamped the whole thing together and drilled from the top free hand. I fitted each dowel as I went along as before.






I managed to get them all glued up yesterday and cleaned them up today sanding the glue off and easing the arrises with the ROS. I then applied a coat of fence stuff to complete the job. I forgot to photograph the finished items before I came away this afternoon so will post pictures tomorrow.

regards

Brian


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## brianhabby (15 Apr 2009)

Well, here they are all finished:






And they stack...  






Actually I would have preferred them to stack a bit more snugly but you 'live n learn', they really needed a bigger angle for this.

This project, while not being 'fine cabinetmaking' has had its own challenges and I'm quite happy with the outcome. It's also been quite satisfying to be able to put what is basically someone elses rubbish to good use.

One thing I wish I had done is to cut the edge of the top frames to the same 10 degree angle to line up better with the uprights but this is a minor detail.

regards

Brian


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## motownmartin (15 Apr 2009)

I quite like these Brian, a good idea to make them stackable.


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## OPJ (15 Apr 2009)

Looks good, Brian. Isn't it nice when things, quite literally, _go together_ well at the end! :wink:


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## ByronBlack (17 Apr 2009)

Nicely done, they look very good. Is the recipient going to cover them in mesh/netting?


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## brianhabby (17 Apr 2009)

I think she is planning on covering them with some kind of mesh to keep the bugs off her cabbages or whatever she grows in them.

I'm quite pleased that they stack but I was hoping they might have been a bit more snug but that would have meant a greater angle than the 10 degrees that I used which might have make them a bit too 'pointy'.

regards

Brian


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