Finishing off

To finish off the woodwork, I put a strip over the bottom of the pailings (which covers the join between the base board and the pailings) and another pair of strips half way up the panel.

The top is finished off with a fence top rail which covers the tops of the pailings. The finished panel looks almost the same regardless of which side you look at.


Also here's my other blog with another of my projects http://www.cozycastle.blogspot.com/

Strips instead of rails.

To hold the pailings in position, I've got a solid 50mm x 65mm rail at the top and 19mm x 65mm hardwood strips each side of the fence at the bottom and the middle.

These strips are kiln dried spotted gum and hold their shape very well with little warping and bending. They also dressed all round and look great.

The bottom strip sits on the base board on one side. I've glued and screwed it in position with 4 screws per panel. Once the top rail and one bottom strip are in position, the pailings can be fitted in position and screwed top and bottom.

Posts as features

Rather than hide posts away from view - the posts will stand out and be features in themselves. I'm using cypress pine posts which has quite a distinctive grain pattern. It's also very durable outdoors. These posts came with a fancy carved tops.

Designing a better fence.

I wanted to build a nice looking fence for the boundry between my and my neighbours front yard. As this was the front of my house - and I plan on staying in my house for a long time and transforming it into my castle. After doing some drawings of proposed fences that looked nice, I presented them to my neighbour and found she didn't like any of them. She had only one idea about fences - the fence should be tall and completely block out any view of her front yard. That's a pretty big difference in ideas.

I like the character of building with timber, but I couldn't find a design for a timber fence that I liked. Most timber fences have a good side for show and a bad side with posts and rails which forms the inside of somebodies yard. There are fencing products available for good neighbour fences, but these are fairly expensive.

To satisfy both of us, this fence I was building would need to have some characteristics:
1. Inexpensive
2. Attractive
3. Not have a good side and a bad side.
4. Tall.

I'll be adapting some fence desings because I haven't seen any fences designs that have these charcteristics.


Here's a sample panel from my fence.