| In
This Article:
Thin strips of treated lumber
are miter-cut and laid out on a piece of foam. The overlap
points are stapled and the staple points are flattened out. |
Related
Articles:
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| Skill Level:
2-3 (Basic to Intermediate) |
Time Taken:
About An Hour |
By
Bruce W. Maki,
Editor
While building a backyard privacy screen recently, I needed a
small section of lattice, about 2 feet by 1½ feet. It didn't make
sense to buy a whole 4x8 sheet of pre-made lattice, so I bought some thin strips of treated
wood "lath" or lattice slats and built my own lattice.
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I started by placing a piece of ½ inch
foam insulation on a worktable. |
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| Using a marker, I drew the outline of the
shape of the section of lattice that I wanted to build. |
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|
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I cut one of the longest pieces of wood
and placed it on the foam base at a 45 degree angle. |
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| I laid another piece of wood lath on the
base, and used a piece of 1x4 as a spacing guide, which
gave me a spacing close to the original "high
privacy" lattice from Lowes. |
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|
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I marked where the new piece of lath
intersected with the red perimeter marks |
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| In a few minutes I had all of the slats
cut and positioned for one half of the lattice. I had to
be careful not to bump the pieces. |
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|
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I placed the first cross-piece over the
bottom layer of slats. |
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| I fastened the first cross-piece with a
pneumatic stapler.
I used the shortest staples I had, which were
5/8" long. The ends of the staples poked through
the other side of the wood, which I expected. That
is why I used a piece of foam as a work surface. |
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|
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I marked the outer line of the next piece. |
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| I positioned and fastened the second piece
of lath. |
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|
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This is what the project looked like as it
was nearing completion.
It seemed best to work from the middle outward,
alternately fastening a couple of boards on each side. |
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| The assembly after all the slats had been
stapled together.
The final small pieces were tricky because they
tended to split when stapled. |
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|
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Next, I lifted the assembly from the foam
backer. You can see how the far the staples protruded
out the back side. |
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| I turned over the assembly and...
Voila...
Uncle Fester's bed! |
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|
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I bent the staple legs with the tip of a
screwdriver. |
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| This was kinda time-consuming, because I
put two staples at most intersection points.
The store-bought lattice fastens every other
connection point with one staple. |
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|
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I placed the sheet of lattice on the
garage floor and hammered the bent staples flat. |
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| I slid the lattice into the slots in the
frame. However, this custom-made piece of lattice was a
bit thicker that the store-bought lattice, so it didn't
fit into the grooves.
I used a belt sander to sand down the wood at the
edges until the panel would fit into the groove.
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|
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The final product. The larger piece of
lattice is one-half of a 4'x8' sheet bought from Lowes.
The smaller section is what I built from thin pieces of
treated wood "lath", also purchased at Lowes. |
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Material Coverage:
I used almost 7 pieces of 6-foot long treated
"lath" strips for this small section of
lattice, which measures about 19 inches by 23 inches.
That's about 3 square feet, so I used about 2.33 pieces
of 6' long lath per square foot of lattice panel.
Viewed another way, that works out to around 0.43
square feet of lattice per strip of lath.
I figure that if I had no waste I could get just
about one square foot of lattice for each 6-foot strip
of lath. But there will always be some waste, as the
ends need to be cut on a 45-degree angle.
A bundle of 10 pieces of this lath cost $4.55, so for
my little section of lattice the cost works out to just
over a dollar per square foot. Given that a sheet of
high-privacy lattice costs less than 12 bucks, if I
needed to build a section of lattice that was bigger
than 12 square feet, it would be cheaper to buy a
pre-made panel.
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Tools
Used:
- Miter Saw
- Pneumatic Stapler
- Basic Carpentry Tools
- Piece of Foam Insulation
|
Materials Used:
- Treated "Lath"
or Lattice Slats,
6' long
- 5/8" Staples
|
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