Garden Arbor Construction, Part 13

July 31, 2021

With the arbor nearly complete, we have just a few steps left. The next task is adding some fascia around the large crossbeams that connect each post. Doing this helps cover up the base of things, where the posts and arches all connect up.

The arbor fascia has been, by far, the most complicated part of this whole process. Liz and I struggled a lot together, with arguments for different approaches. It was for us another of those extremely challenging times, where boht of us had different solutions for tackling problems.

What the pictures here don’t show are the various attempts and trials (and lots of errors that didn’t quite work out).

Ultimately, we ended up going with Liz’s approach to try to determine the degree of the exterior angles needed… and cutting pieces to fit. Which worked…mostly. With some refinements needed at the tail end.

First up – a lot of math. In addition to getting the lengths needed for each piece, we also had to determine the angle of the cut. We got a digital angle finder, and thanks to Leah Bolden’s help, figured out what we needed to cut.

Side note: I’ve found Bolden’s YouTube channel really approachable and helpful.

Math details. I really wish I stayed awake more, during Geometry class in high school.

Angles on the exterior of the arbor (for the south side).

After finding the length of each piece, determining the angle cut wasn’t too hard of a process. For the most part, if the angle is 90 or less… just divide the number in half.

Example: if the exterior angle is 88 degrees, then for each of the pieces connecting to that angle… those pieces each need to be 44 degree cuts.

The one trick is if the angle you’re working with is greater than 90 degress. In that case, the math is slightly different (but not by much).

Example: if the exterior angle is 100 degrees, first divide that number by two (resulting in 50). Since you can’t set your saw to 50 degress, there’s a second step here. Take 90 and subtract that original 50 (resulting in 40). This 40 is now the angle you need for both pieces.

There were a lot of attempts here, before this finally got up. One big challenge was due to the fact that the arches were not flush against the crossbeams (out of necessity). And the arches also needed to be shimmed a bit, so that they could connect to one another. This made for a fairly uneven/asymmetrical surface to try to apply fascia to.

Another challenge: one side had to sit on top of the lath that wrapped over the top of the arbor.

The back of the arbor, looking West.

There are definitely some imperfections, but it actually looks a lot better than we had hoped. A little more sanding and an eventual coat of paint will hopefully hide some of our sins.