Festool this - Strawberry Tower project

[Ken Nagrod]

Looks really good!

 

[tiralie]

That looks great!
Congratulations, too good for strawberry's or what ever you're gonna put in it.
Tim

 

[awdriven]

Thanks so much for the compliments and the advice! I finished the shelves today, did a bit of sanding to break the edges of the shelves slightly, clean up some pencil marks, etc. I need to make the top and I think then it's all over except for the dirt and greenery!

The dadoes could be a little more refined - with some more improvements to the jig, this could have been done a lot faster. I'd like them to be held back a bit further from the edge of the 2x4 too (concealed) but it looks OK. My cedar shelves were a little thicker than my pine test pieces and since I lack a thickness planer, I just relieved the edges of the shelves slightly with the RO90 as I installed them.

Here are a couple more poor quality pictures from my phone. I promise better quality ones before I fill it up.

Now I have to figure out how to execute the cap.

P.S. - My house isn't falling down - camera phone has some crazy lens distortion sometimes.  [eek]

 

[Ken Nagrod]

Cut a square the size you want for the top.  Place it on the top of the tower in the exact position and trace the intersection of the uprights on the bottom side of the top piece.  Route them out, take the piece and give it to me so I can cut your 4 bevels on the top of the top piece on my table saw.

EDIT:  Just make sure the square piece is thick enough to have plenty of meat between the deepest areas that are routed out and the thinnest parts of the top bevels.

 

[Ken Nagrod]

Check my edit above.

It looks like the tower is propping up the garage header.  [big grin]

 

[tiralie]

Wow it came together nicely.
I am almost sorry this thread is coming to an end. I am happy that you persevered.
It's been fun to watch.
Tim

 

[awdriven]

That would be awesome, thanks Ken!

The cap as I have it drawn is a 3/4 x 8" x 8" square with an 8" x 8" by 1 inch tall pyramid on top.

My thought was that I'd route out the square base piece and drive a couple screws down through the top of the square into the tops of the uprights to lock them in place. Then place the pyramid on top and use a pair of screws to attach that. That leaves open the option to either copper-clad or not.

Now, down to practical considerations -

I don't have any 8 inch wide stock, so unless I source some, this would be a glue-up.

Do you need this to be one piece in order to make it safe to cut? Any issue with a glue-up? I could probably just drop the height of the pyramid section to 3/4 inch and it could be made up from stock on hand if that works.

I have some 2x4 and 4x4 cedar on hand as well. I may be able to do something with those, but they have radiused edges.

Thanks again, the thread will keep going until some strawberries have been taste tested  [tongue]

 

[awdriven]

I ripped the radius edges off some leftover cedar 2x4 and glued it up into an approximately 8.5x8.5x1.5 slab. We'll see how it sands up tomorrow.

 

[BTDT]

Looking great! I won't be satisfied until I see it in place and full of plants!!! Seriously, I'm glad you have been sharing this project. The design, problem solving and build have been great to follow and read.

When you first showed this planter I was dead certain I would want to build one. I still do. It might not be as large though.

Brad

 

[GPowers]

Seems ashame to fill it with dirt and plants [sad] And cover up all the hard work.

 

[Ken Nagrod]

Not a bad idea having a 2-piece top.  You're going to have to decide the size of the pyramid for what you consider visually pleasing.  For a copper cover, you could either get a thin sheet and form it over the pyramid piece using things like a large dowel (wooden closet rod), the most difficult areas being the corners at the edges, then trim the excess.  Or get a thick sheet of copper and pound the pyramid top into it using sacrificial wood as the beater block and something like a thick canvas tarp folded up as the cushion for the copper like metal forming with a sandbag.  The easy, quick way out would be cutting the copper to fit and solder the seam(s) but I don't like the idea of the soldered joint out in the weather as it will at some point become brittle and fail plus it won't look as good, in my opinion.

 

[awdriven]

The glue up looks pretty decent after drying over night. I'll sand it up and cut it to size/shape tonight.

If I can, I'll also glue up a matching 8x8x3/4 base piece.

I should have the copper in hand this evening. It's 26 gauge material, so pretty readily formed. (I say that, but have never done this before.) I understand that normal copper roofing material is 24 gauge.

Ken, just shoot me a PM or e-mail and let me know when it would be convenient to pick up the pyramid stock. I'll check out height options. The glue-up leaves the option to go up to appx 1.5 inches, but that 1 inch rise seems to look pretty good in Sketchup. I don't want the cap to compete with the rest of the piece.

 

[awdriven]

BTDT, if you are interested, I'd be glad to share information to help with a build. I think a 3 or 4 footer would have a lot of the fun but take quite a bit less time.

I'd love to see what people are able to do in terms of improving the design and making the build process Faster, Simpler, Better or all of the above.

I'm glad people have been enjoying the updates and wish I could have given you some more interesting pictures or videos along the way.

 

[awdriven]

The pyramid glue-up is in Ken's hands for cutting and this morning I glued up the 3/4 x 8 x 8 base. Hopefully I can route the recess in that base piece later today. I made it slightly oversized so I can trim it to match the pyramid.

 

[Ken Nagrod]

I knew there was something I was supposed to be doing instead of hanging out on here!

 

[Ken Nagrod]

Many of us are aware of the long time debate as to whether having a table saw is necessary or needed at all after owning the Festool TS saws and guide rails.  I've said it before that I don't think they can totally replace a table saw, so having one would be beneficial for many woodworkers/carpenters, I think.  This just goes to prove that point.  

This is the top cap that AWDRIVEN asked me to make from his cedar glue up.  I made a vertical fixture that entrapped the the 8x8x1.5" block (dimensions after thickness planing it and squaring it up) and clamped it to ride the rip fence on my table saw.  Cut the four sides at a 15 degree bevel.  Final dimensions as it stands are 7 13/16" x 7 13/16" x 1 1/4" height at center and 5/16" thick around the edge after fine tuning it.  The square in the middle of the block is the result of my blade only able to cut 3 9/16" deep per pass.  We are having a discussion about whether to keep the raised square or I can just hand saw and finish sand it to a full pyramid.  If anyone has opinions on which way to go, I'm open to hearing stuff.

I don't see how either of the Festool TS saws would have been able to do this.

There is barrel distortion from the lens of my camera.

 

[awdriven]

Looks beautiful! A compelling argument for the table saw. A TS75 in CMS wouldn't have had the reach either, I don't think.

The little button on top looks cool - nice when a little detail just reveals itself to you as you work.  I was hoping the endgrain would make a cool pattern and it did

 

[Ken Nagrod]

Looks beautiful! A compelling argument for the table saw. A TS75 in CMS wouldn't have had the reach either, I don't think.

The little button on top looks cool - nice when a little detail just reveals itself to you as you work.   I was hoping the endgrain would make a cool pattern and it did

You could look at it that way  [big grin].  I forgot to mention to you how deep of a cut per side I could get with the dimensions of the block, when we first discussed this.  I decided to wait until it was done to offer you the option of keeping it or not.  I figured yesterdays phone pics wouldn't do it justice and you might get some helpful opinions here.

The TS75 mounted in a CMS or the CS70 can't cut anywhere near the depth my table saw can.  I'm pretty sure they're limited to 70mm and my saw cuts to 90.5mm.

By the way, for any of our proficient hand tool users out there, yes this could have been done with a raised panel cutting hand plane, but they're pretty hard to come by and this was a freebie so power tools it is.

 

[awdriven]

Just trimming the raised part off flush is an option too and might look good.

I took the dimensions and plugged them into Sketchup, here are the two side by side. I think it would look better mated up with a half inch thick piece instead of three quarter?

 

[Ken Nagrod]

Keep in mind, if I trim off the square button, you can't go back to the pyramid shape without cutting down the size of the block.