Arched Garden Bridge

When my friend Martin saw the platers I made for Lance he ordered an arched bridge to be built from the pressure treated lumber from the deck he had replaced. This project stretch my ability and workspace because it is 12 feet long and my shop is only 8 feet long. In order to build this I had to work outside in the August sun, needless to say it required a lot of sweat and choice language. I used my doweling rig and hundreds of 1/2 inch by 3 inch dowel pegs to build the 18 inch and 12 inch tall parts. I used a 8 foot 2x4 and string to layout the arches and cut them with a saber saw. I then used a trim router to flatten and make the arches the same size. The cross supports are made by gluing 2 2x10 pieces with TiteBond III and re-sawing them in 3x3 lumber. The arched supports split along the grain so I glued them and used Simpson T39 tie plates to keeping them from splitting again. There is no photo of the completed bridge bacuase he has not prepared the site yet.