A-Frame Construction Part I: Preparation

It's official--we're going to have an A-frame!

Yesterday I got all the supplies:

• 2 sheets of 3/8" plywood (but if I were doing it again I'd get 1/2")
• 4, 10' 2x4 boards
• 4, 8' 2x3 boards (but I'd do all 2x4 if I were doing it again)
• Hinges
• Chain
• 6, 7' by 1" moulding strips.  I found some with nice rounded edges and they're even pre-primed

And I already had:

• Screws
• Wood glue
• Paint and primer
• Sand

I had the wood cut at Home Depot.  Here is the cut list:

1.  Rip 1' off the width of the plywood so the boards are 3'x8' rather than 4'x8' [cuts 1 and 2]

2.  Take one of the 1'x8' sections of ply that you just created from step 1 and cut two 3'x1' sections out of it (the result will be a 2'x1' piece of scrap) [cuts 3 and 4]

3.  Cut 1' off each of the four 2x4 boards so they are 9' long [cuts 5-8]

4.  Cut the 2x3 (or other 2x4 boards if you're doing my suggested improvement model) into 33" sections.  You'll need eight 33" lengths.  The rest is scrap. [cuts 9-16]

That's a total of 16 cuts.  Home Depot did 2 for free and then charged 50 cents per cut beyond that.  For me, it was well worth it, but if you have the right tools set up at home you might want to do it yourself.