@Doghouse Riley This forum has recently experienced some rather nasty stuff and people are feeling a wee bit cautious. Given that particular issue and as a previous poster on this forum, albeit some years ago, I'm sure you will understand
Thanks for that.
I really don't understand "people who shout before they've been hit."
But then some do go looking for trouble. I guess they've nothing better to do.
The balustrade of the former pool pergola has always had ornamental panels I made, to match those of the ones of the tea-house veranda. You get a glimpse of them at the end of this video. I've had to replace them three times as they tend to rot. This is because I have to cut them out of "exterior grade" (that's a joke) plywood using a hand jigsaw. This disturbs the laminations, so whatever you do, over time water gets between them and rots the panels in a few places.
This year, I decided enough was enough and ripped them out. Cleaned up the apertures and made new frames, back in May.
My idea was to make the panels out of solid wood. But couldn't get wood a foot wide out of which to make them in one piece.
I did have similar ones on the two support posts of the pergola on the back of the house, which went the same way.
So last year I replaced them with these rondels, I made from a spare bit of hardwood window sill I'd bought to make a shelf for the TV in the tea-house.
They are just there to hide the big coach bolts that connect the posts to the double cross beams.
Seems daft but I missed having a bit of ornamentation in this balastrade.
So I decide at the week-end to make something similar to those on the pergola.
I wasn't going to fork out for hardwood. It's a ridiculous price. I bought some 9" soft wood window sill (the widest wood the wood yard had).
I'm OK with the geometry, (some graph paper, a ruler and a cereal bowl to describe a circle), but cutting out five with a hand jigsaw was a pain.
Even with that I couldn't fill the frames so had to connect the top and bottom of each rondel with a short length of dowel. Then more dowel either side to steady them.
But the job's done now and painted and I don't think they look too bad. All five rondels are very slightly different, but no one will notice and I'm happy with them as they are.
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Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.