Making it was another huge task. All the curves involved were another first for me. I've made a few curved elements here and there, but this project is dominated by them. Wood is not curved so cutting such pieces and shaping them was a very laborious task. The bridge turned out beautiful but it was a long journey.

Completed Bridge In Final Setting

To produce all the curves accurately, I used a template scheme which were used with a router to replicate the various curves called for. Actually there were two curve templates. One was the template for the hand rail pieces. The second template was the base curves. From those two templates, the other arc pieces were also cut, using some appropriate portion of the two templates as the pieces required. Lots of router cutting followed that. Then all those curves needed refining by many, many hours of sanding. As so many pieces are curved, they involved a whole bunch of hand sanding (those machines don't like curves). But, eventually, all the edges were sanded.

For the posts, I glued up three pieces of oak to create a solid, thick post that holds the hand rails. The joint to connect those posts to the handrails was two fold. First, the post tops were staggered so that the center board of the three pieces extended up to be glued and screwed into the handrail. The handrail was also made of three pieces of oak which were glued and screwed together. To connect to the post center extended board, the handrail center boards had a matching cut out for the extended post board.

All of the pieces of the bridge are connected via stainless steel screws as time and weather would surely defeat any "glue only" adhesion concepts. The three layered posts and hand rails: they were glued, but also screwed together to hold up over time. The first layers adhesion to t he second layers have screws inside them which one can not see. Then the final third layer adhesion to the previous two already connected layers: stainless steel screws which are visible.

While I was drawing up plans and actually making the bridge, the type of finish was tested and tested again. Initially I had thought a tung oil finish may look nice. Tests proved me right. The tung oil looked great, but, putting samples out in my walkway and garden showed the finish failed after only a few months. A new series of tests were made and put outside with a deck finish and a marine varnish finish. The deck finish failed within a few weeks. The marine varnish held up best. It looked pretty good after three months and even a few months after that. The reality is that this finish must be re-applied at least twice a year and more safely, more often than that to keep it from failing due to weather.

Garden Bridge Base

Back to the construction. I first completed the base. It consists of three 2x oak boards with the arcs having been shaped. They are spaced to hold the walkway pieces. 2x support pieces span between the three main arc supports every couple of feet. All those base pieces are held together via metal braces. Many of the braces and many, many screws. It's quite strong.

With the base complete, I moved on the making the bridge sides. The sides are made up of the three piece thick hand rails, three additional arc pieces and square slat pieces that connect with the arcs for design purposes.

Connecting the square slat pieces to curved arcs ended up in fine fashion, but I struggled with a solution to the connecting problems. How would I connect these squares to the arcs without them "spinning" when done? I thought about that for months while I drew plans and while I made the base. Finally, my father in law was visiting and I spoke to him about my dilemma. He is a machinist and once I asked him, he had a solution within a couple of hours. He said to make square openings in the arcs to accept square ends, thus the slats would not "spin". Worked great. Not easy but worked great. As the slats are the same width as the arcs (3/4 inch), I could not simple fit them in a hole without it being visible - not a design idea I wanted to happen. So, I hand chiseled 3/8" square holes into the bottom arc that would meet these slats. Then, matching size small tendons were formed on the bottom of these slats to go into the square holes. Lots of hand work, but solved the problem without any visual clue.

A Completed Bridge Side

The side pieces were made and assembled.

Next up was the making of the walkway pieces. First, a bunch of oak was cut into narrow pieces. The design was greatly based on the oriental look of narrow walkway boards with small gaps between them. A far different look than if one simply put wider boards in place as a walkway. After the appropriate width and lengths were cut, each walkway board was rounded off on the ends and top edges on a router for a more "gentle" look. Then, two holes (and countersink) on each end were drilled. Again, tons of sanding and the walkway pieces were ready.

To begin putting it all together, the posts needed to be attached to the base. A lot of strength called for here. To provide strength I used bolts, 3 each on the bottom ends of the posts to connect them to the base. Counter sunk to avoid having them stick out. Stainless steel to hold up over time in weather. They are at the bottom of course which in the bridges final setting will be virtually invisible as there is rock landscaping covering up the post and bridge base on each of the ends.

Attaching the walkway pieces, all of them were laid out on the bridge and I played with 1/4 inch spacers to find a pleasing layout. As is usual, the ends did not end up being the proper width of all the other slats. Thus, each of the final two walkway boards on each end were custom made after all the other pieces were put in place. To make up the space which remained, the next to last walkway pieces were notched out to fit into the posts. The final end walkway boards were wider than all the others to eat up the remaining space. I looked at two narrower boards but did not like that design. The final wider walkway boards look good and represent a "threshold".

The Bridge Completed In My Shop

Well, the bridge was made! But, now, I took it all apart to apply the finish. Many pieces here, each needing front and back treatment. I diluted the marine varnish to allow a wipe on application. This diluted varnish required more coats but by wiping on I was able to avoid the brush marks normally accompanying a brushed on application. Seven coats, front and back, with steel wool smoothing between each coat and the bridge was ready to be put back together.