Trellis–Version 2.0

Version 1.0 was a quick throw together project which has not held up as well as I would have liked it to over the last couple weeks.  The top stretcher has sagged creating a U-shaped smiley face which has loosened the twine that was tightly wrapped around the stretchers to start with.  Additionally, the frame is easily moved side to side because there is no diagonal cross bracing.

Taking the lessons learned on this trellis for the peas, I vowed to re-engineer the bean trellis to make stronger, stiffer, and less rickety.

Version 2.0 will stick with the same A-frame, with one slight modification. I have kept the same dimensions and angles of the 1×6 boards that attach to the 2×2 legs, but I shifted the top plate all the way to the top of the A-frame.  This is hard to explain by typing, but you can simply compare the above A-frame photo to the first photo of this post to understand the change I have made.

    

Next, I decided to increase the quantity of 2×2’s from the 3 to 4.  All our 8’-0” long and there will be two attached about 14” up from the bottom of the frame and two that will be attached at the very top of the frame.  I made sure that all four 2×2’s were oriented so that the tree rings were seen on the end of the board were running up and down and not laying flat.  This way the wood will be oriented in the strongest direction possible like a floor joist.  This was something I knew but overlooked in my haste on version 1.0.

Finally, I needed to address the lack of lateral stability and what better way to do this with some 45-degree cross bracing.  I had a bunch of 2’-0” off-cuts from cutting the legs of the A-frames to 6’-0” long that would be perfect.  A couple of quick cuts and some pre-drilling and the cross bracing was installed and stiffened up the trellis frame substantially.

The finished product next to the original version.  Once the peas die back I will retro fit the original trellis to look like the current version.