Grape Trellis: Day 1

This weekend is dedicated toward building a grape trellis.  It is going to go here:

Since it is going above the pathway, I want it to curve with the pathway.  That presents the first challenge: bending wood.  First, I graphed out on paper exactly how I want the bending to occur.

Then I plotted this shape onto a 10-foot long 2"x10" and used a Skil saw to cut it out.  This will be the form that I clamp the longer, slender boards to in order to bend them into shape.



If I had bigger clamps, I wouldn't have had to do this next step, but because I only have 6" clamps, I glued small pieces of wood onto the form that I will use to clamp the bending wood to.  I also had to improvise and use a caulking gun as a clamp, which didn't work out too badly for future reference.

I'm letting this dry overnight, and tomorrow I'll start the process of bending the wood that will eventually constitute the main supporting beams of the trellis.