Just go and make it
The fence in front of our house has some post toppers that are getting a bit long in the tooth.The previous owner, reports say, wasn't involved with the building of the fence so I can't really blame him.We have a couple of problems:
- The fence posts aren't the usual 4x4" nominal posts, but rather 5x5" nominal. (i.e. 4.5" square)
- The post toppers are two-piece
- The bottom part of the post topper doesn't seem to be pressure-treated wood
- The post itself, due to the failure of the topper, seems to be getting a bit soft
The last part we can fix... we can stabilize and harden the wood.The remaining parts seemed to be harder. When shopping around we could not find anything that would work with our posts. That was kind of a bummer.This morning I had a revelation: just make the damn things!Like so much of anything when working with wood you just have to make it yourself.Off to Home Depot:
- 1x6" cedar plank
- 45º router bit
Of course the wood was too wide. The toppers we had are 4 1/2". Now the right tool for the job is a table saw to rip the wood down an inch. The tool I had on hand was a hand-held circular saw.Done.Next: chamfer the two long sides. I had a hand-held router already so Bob was definitely my uncle. (Actually, yes, En has an uncle Bob. Two of them in fact.)Done.Then dice them up into squares. The right tool would be a circular arm saw. I don't have one. Back to the circular saw.The last thing is to chamfer the remaining two sides. Again, the correct tool here would be a router table. I don't have one. The router sits upside down quite nicely though -- especially when Ennie is holding it.Done!Now we just need to source some French Gothic finials which isn't really a do-it-yourself type jobbie.
