Patrol Box - Chapter 2

The first step was collecting old cedar fencing from a local fencing company.   The weathering of the fencing results in about 20% loss of wood.    The first step is to remove the sections of the fencing that are clearly splitting or have been nailed.   This is to prevent damage to the planner blades.

This is a photograph of what the fencing looked like before processing.   My son, working on his carpentry merit badge, helped cull the fence boards, remove the nails, and plane and grade each piece of wood.

The boards required four passes, two on each side, through the planner.   Each pass removed about 1/64" of material.   The surfaced boards were then edge ripped on the table saw to square them up before the project of building the boxes could begin.   In all, we processed 400 fence boards and created five bags of cedar shavings that we used in our garden.

The finished boards above staged for the next part of the project - cutting the pieces for the boxes.