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Oh, boy, I don't know how I'm going to finish this one in five days
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I've got five days to finish a birthday present project for my wife
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What is it? Well, she'd like to have a garden arbor. Well, here's the problem. I've got a photograph, but I don't have any plans
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Perhaps you've got a similar type situation. You see something in a book or magazine, and you want to build it, but you don't know where to start
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Well, sometimes, even in the magazine or the photograph, they'll get it
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give you a few little tips. And in this particular one, they actually give us the size of the overall arbor
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Well, go ahead and use that dimension, or those dimensions, and start to work backwards
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First thing you want to do is go ahead and gather the materials that you think you're going to need. It'll probably be different sized pieces of lumber
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Not a problem. If it's an outdoor project, I prefer to use redwood
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Redwood is naturally rot resistant. And if you paint all the pieces before you put them together
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it's going to last a long time. Now, how do you cut it? out the different shapes and sizes that you see on the particular project Well if the project has curves like mine does go ahead and look around your house for different type items that are naturally circular
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For example, cans, maybe a paint can, maybe a bottle, maybe it's a large drywall bucket
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even a drywall bucket lid, even a garbage can, has got a very large circle to it
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Now what happens if the circle's so big or you got a gentle arc and you don't know how to do that
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What I like to use, get a thin strip of wood and that you can actually actually, you can actually
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bend to create a nice big arc. Those are very, very good things to use. Finally, go ahead
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cut out all your pieces, see if they all fit, and get them all ready to paint before you
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assemble your project. Okay. Well, you can see that the project is starting to take shape
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I'm not finished. I've still got some more pieces to cut out, but it's not that hard to work from
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a photograph. Go ahead and give it a try if you've got a job coming up. If you want to discover more home improvement tips, go to ask the builder.com
