Plant Stand # 4

Here birdie birdie birdie.   

    When I asked Cari (my daughter-in-law) if there was anything she would like me to make for her family,  she replied that I could make her one of those tiered cedar plant stands.   (That request may have been made a few months ago.  It takes time for the old guy to get around to stuff.)     This will be the fourth time I have done this project.     Pictured to the right is the very first one that I made six years ago.    That one was made out of scrap pressure treated wood scraps and still seems to be holding up fairly well.     The next one that I built was out of western cedar scraps.   The third one that I built was made out of Iowa cedar wood and I coated that one with some exterior varnish.    Whether pressure treated wood or cedar wood they all seem to handle mid-west weather.   Over time the wood does become weathered and loses it's fresh new wood look.     The last one That I applied exterior varnish to was for a fund raiser and was sold so I never got to see or hear  how the varnish held up.

I forgot how much lumber costs. 

Varnish or no varnish it seems like mother nature eventually wins and wood eventually loses when it comes to the survivor game.  Still I like wooden things for the time they do last.  I guess that is why I continue to saw boards into little pieces.

   In the past I have been working on using up wood from those old wood scrap piles that I have stored away, but for this project I did not have any cedar wood on hand.   

I cut all the cedar pieces to the require lengths

   . 

I had to head to the lumberyard and purchase a couple of cedar boards to add to the very few pieces that I did have on hand in order to come up with enough wood to do this project.   (Sticker Shock!!!  Do you know anybody that is building a new cedar deck and throwing scraps away?   He could become my buddy overnight.)
   

Lots of spanking sticks 

     Then I rip cut all those pieces to the required width.   (After that I did something that makes me wondering where I'm headed.)  I sanded each individual piece.      I would not have needed to do that, but I was thinking that it might finish out a little better.

    The last time - or the number 3 stand - I assembled the plant stand first and then I applied a couple coats of exterior varnish.  I was a little disappointed with that process as I felt that those areas in between the boards did not receive very much varnish.  So this time I decided to varnish the pieces before I assembled the stand.

Let's see.   Hmmm.  What is next?

     Since glue does not bond well with varnish, I had to lay out all the boards and figure out the sequence of assembly.     Then wherever glue was to be applied I had to place small pieces of painters tape over that area so that the varnish would not soak in to that area where glue was to soak in.

   I think I might have made it more difficult than it would of had to be.   (Yeah! like a couple days difficult.)   Still, I was proud of the varnish job.  (Proud of my sanding job....?)    There was good coverage of all the pieces.
   The test will be on what this plant stand will look like in six years from now.    Will it look better than the first photo or will it still look like the last photo. 

Before any rains.    Before any snow.      Before any spilled potting soil.