Making a cold frame out of pallets and old windows

Last week I made my first of three cold frames for the kitchen garden, using pallet wood, reclaimed 2 x 2's, a couple of old hedge laying stakes and some old aluminium double glazed windows that I had been keeping at the back of the wood store for this very project.

Each window measures approx 500W x 900L so I decided to fit two to each cold frame. Each lid measuring 1150W x 1000 D and due to the weight of the glass will be fitted with stout tee hinges.

Making the lid from 50 x 50 reclaimed wood

I had a look though my stack of pallet slats which I had denailed and chose 25 which were of a similar length and thickness and which after planing and thicknessing I ended up with 20 pretty much the same. Those that were cracked at the ends were cut down on the mitre saw and used for the side boards.

Fixing the beading to the inside of the frame

The aluminium window frames were too narrow for fixings, so I ripped down some lengths of 50 x 50 on the table saw, into 15 x 15 beading and attached this to the frame with screws and waterproof PVA glue.

Marking up the top boards for the diagonal cut

Cutting the diagonals for the two side boards with the Festool track saw

In order to cut the diagonals for the top side boards I set up the Festool track saw on the MFT table holding the boards secure with dogs and rail clamps. Since installing the MFT top, I wonder how I ever managed without one!

Gluing the diagonals to the side boards

I decided to glue each diagonal board to the one below with waterproof PVA glue. Due to my Titan planer thickenesser only having a 200mm wide bed, I was limited to gluing just two boards together. To make the clamping easier I glued the two opposite diagonals at the same time, which made up a rectangle and made for a very strong clamp. I left the boards to dry overnight and the next day the two sections were ready for planing.

Sanding the side panels

After planing I assembled the side, back and front panels and sanded them with the DeWalt random orbital sander with 120 grit paper.

Dry fit with the glass panels in the lid

The next step was to assemble the cold frame with the glass panels as a dry fit, to test for square and adjust as necessary! Then take the whole thing apart again and apply two coats of Danish Oil which works just as well outside, as long as a new coat is applied every year.

Applying the first coat of Rustins Danish Oil with a lint free cloth

After the first coat had dried I denibbed the Danish Oil with a 240 grit paper and applied the second coat and let this dry overnight.

The cold frame sections laid out on the weed membrane

Each panel came together easily

The three cold frames will sit on a one metre wide weed membrane which will help keep slugs out, but allow the bed to drain easily. I was pleased to see that panels remained in square and screwed together easily and the lid fitted correctly.

Using a speed square to check for square

The next day the cold frame was being made ready for starting seeds in trays and hardening off plants that had started arriving by post.

The heavy glass panels means there is no need for catches to hold the lid down in windy weather

The lid is held open by two long and two short supports to regulate the temperature 

Now ready to receive plants and seed trays

The build took about five days from laying out the windows on the bench to the cold frame being ready for planing. Had I been using new wood this could have been reduced by a couple of days, but considering this was made from rough pallets and an assortment of reclaimed wood, I am very pleased with the result.

You can never have too many clamps!

One of my woodwork teachers said to me "you can never have enough clamps" and you know he's dead right, because no matter how many you have, sometimes there are never enough!

Four Bessey K Body Revo 1250 Clamps and two Uniclamp 60's hold four 3 x 37 inch boards in glue up

Over the last 60 years of woodworking I have used all manner of clamps and the Record cast iron sash clamps were a firm favourite as these were brilliant for holding windows, doors and tables securely in glue up.

Cast iron sash clamp

However these days with arthritis in my spine, I have to be very careful lifting awkward heavy weights, so when I came to upgrade my clamps I started looking for lighter alternatives..

An assortment of Bessey, Irwin, Axminster and Festool clamps

I recently invested in a superb set of Bessey Clamps which are made in Germany.The K Body Revo 1250, of which I have four, can exert 8000N of clamping force and having used these on various projects, I feel are nearly as good as the much heavier iron sash clamps and will give me everything I need for the foreseeable future. I also have two of the smaller Bessey Uniclamp 60's
which are also very good and of which I shall be buying more in due course.

Bessey Uniclamps and Irwin Quick Clamps hoslding four 48 x 3 inch boards in glue up

For small holding tasks the Irwin Quick Clamps are very handy as they can be set with one hand. I use them in the workshop all the time and the 12 inch medium hold clamps are my favourites. In the above photo I am using them to glue up some pallet boards together with the Bessey Uniclamps to prevent the boards twisting. I left these boards to set overnight and they were ready for planing the next day.

Festool and Axminster Rail clamps holding the guide rail and work piece in place for a precise diagonal cut with the TS55

I bought the Festool TS55 plunge and track saw because it was the lightest model I could find and I have been delighted with my purchase. The saw package came with two Festool FSZ120 120mm rail clamps and for use with the MFT table, I bought a further two of these from Axminster which look identical, but have a slightly larger 160mm capacity and the wooden handles are painted red.

Although designed to hold the guide rail securely in place, I find these clamps very useful for a number of jobs. They fit through the 20mm holes in the MFT and will securely hold boards and panels in place, ideal for sanding, routing and using a hand plane. The other day I set up a stop on the pillar drill to drill holes in tiny one centimetre wide strips of pine. The Festool FSZ120 were perfect for holding the stop and this made drilling the 12 strips and easy task. I wonder why it took me so long to buy these clamps as they are brilliant and useful for a number of applications including holding the TS55 guide rail secure!

So whilst I have a number of clamps from the tiny Festool FSZ120's to the mighty Bessey K Revo 1250's, I know that I will always need more. There are times when I use every clamp in the box and wish I had more. C'est la vie!

CamVac Interceptor Lid Review

Camvac Interceptor Lid

A couple of years ago I bought a Titan Planer Thicknesser from Screwfix and have been very pleased with my purchase.

Titan Planer Thicknesser

The dust extraction port is 100mm (4 inch) and when I saw a used Record Power RSDE2 High Pressure Low Volume 100mm dust extractor listed locally on Facebook Market Place for a good price I called the chap up and we did a deal for the extractor and as many free cooking apples as I could cart away!

Record Power RSDE2 100mm Dust Extractor

Initially and not knowing very much about dust extraction I thought the RSDE2 was all I needed, but as I was soon to discover,  planers and thicknessers, called jointers in the US, produce an awful lot of dust and debris, which quickly fill up the dust hopper and clog up the filters!

So I began to investigate how to intercept this debris before it reached the extractor and found that what I needed was a dust cyclone, which could trap the heavy particles and some of the fine dust by swirling the debris around in a vortex, thus leaving the extractor free to provide the needed umph to pressurise the cyclone and make it all work.

Oneida Dust Deputy with 100mm ports

At the time finding a suitable cyclone was very difficult and only Oneida an American company, were making their Dust Deputy with 100mm ports, but at a cost of over £300 which admittedly did include a cardboard barrel, but to which one would have to add the cost of  pipe and fittings, this made the whole thing outside my pay grade!


Whilst reeling from the shock of the cost of the Oneida cyclone I was visiting the Record Power web site searching for a part for the dust extractor, when I happened upon their Camvac Interceptor Lid for a mere £18 and which was claimed to do a similar job.

Camvac Interceptor Lid

Intrigued that this plastic dustbin lid could do what I needed for a fraction of the price of the cyclone I ordered one of these from West Country Machinery4Wood and it arrived a few days later, but as I was to find all too soon, there is no such thing as a free lunch!

The Camvac Interceptor lid will fit a 480mm barrel. So I logged on to Ebay and searched for a used steel drum with a 480mm opening, but found various steel barrels for £20 and £30 but none with the correct size opening. So I then looked at plastic fruit juice barrels, dust bins, trash cans, paint tins etc etc, but all it seemed drums with a 480mm opening were as common as hens teeth.

So I got on the phone to West Country 4Wood and explained my problem and the chap kindly informed me that what I needed was a Record Power CGV386 90L steel drum, available to special order for £99.99! Unsure if the Interceptor lid was actually going to work, I kept looking for a cheap plastic bin so I could try it all out and perhaps order the steel barrel later on.

So with my tape measure in hand I visited a number of local builders yards, farm shops and household supply superstores, but nothing was the correct size or anywhere near close. I was buying some Kreg screws from the last builders merchant on my list, when I spied some very dusty industrial quality plastic bins part buried in the corner of the warehouse and would you know it, one 90L bin had a 470mm lid and the cost was just £12.

I glued strips of closed cell foam to form an airtight seal

In order to get the interceptor lid to make an airtight seal with the dustbin I cut up a sheet of closed cell foam that came in an Amazon box and glued this around the rim of the lid. To enhance the cyclone effect I fitted a stainless 100mm to 120mm connector that I had lying around, to the underside of the in port. The most expensive part that I had to buy was a length of anti static 100mm flexible pipe and some matching pipe clips for £75 making the total cost £105.

The Camvac Interceptor Lid stops most of the dust reaching the extractor

12 months of running the planer thicknesser has only produced this fine layer of dust in the extractor!

I use the Titan Planer Thicknesser mostly for cleaning up pallet wood which I use in my woodwork projects. As you can see in the photo above, the Camvac Interceptor lid traps most of the dust. The light coating of dust in the bottom of the RSDE2 extractor is all that has accrued over a 12 month period of fairly heavy use. By comparison the Interceptor dustbin has been filled and emptied many times over. Now that I have used it for over a year I can say hand on heart it works perfectly and no need for the metal drum, as the plastic bin does the job.

In conclusion, if you are looking for a low cost dust separator for your planer thicknesser, the Camvac Interceptor is an absolute bargain compared to other products on the market!

Building the MFT cutting station

Over the last couple of weeks I have completed the cutting station.

This measures 7 feet long x 4 feet wide x 38 inches high. (213cm x 122cm x 97cm)

Due to the Covid 19 lockdown I have had no access to new materials, so have built this out of relaimed timber and sheet goods that I had to hand, comprising 9mm ply and 18mm mealmine faced chipboard and an assortment of 3 inch x 1.5 inch (85mm x 35mm) CLS, in three, five and seven foot lengths, that I recovered some years ago during a shop refit.

Here are some photos of how it all came together.

The space as it was!

With the Toughbuilt C650 saw horses level the table saw supports go in

Building raised supports for the MFT with the 3" x 1.5" CLS timber 

The MFT top in situ with full length tool compartments lined with 9mm ply

Building the out feed and router tables

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The finished cutting station with a removable panel for the router plate (to be fitted at a later date

Working at home under lockdown restrictions.

I recently started converting part of our 200 year old cottage into a new workshop

The pitch pine floors in this part of the building are the originals, but due to poor ventilation, damp and water ingress, they are in poor shape and so two months ago I began the process of replacing these with engineered tongue and groove chipboard laid over pressure treated joists with K Span insulation.

Old floor removed and earth floor showing

I decided to divide the floor in two, rip out one section, whilst leaving the better side for sizing and cutting the new timber and storing materials. As it turned out this was a good idea, as after removing the old timbers and preparing the floor for the new, the arthritis in my spine became particularly painful and I had to take a break for several weeks..

With limited space, I had had the new timber for the side I was working on delivered and stacked ready. I was hoping to do all this over a two week period and have it completed by mid February. I let the supplier know about my new schedule and so we decided to postpone delivery of the remaining timbers and floor panels until the beginning of April.

Well now it's April and my back is strong again, but the whole of the UK is in lockdown to try and reduce the impact of Covid 19 Pandemic on the NHS and my supplier like all the other builders merchants are closed!

Had things worked out, but do they ever? I would now be in my new 17 x 15 workshop with level floors and all my machines on casters. As it is, the 8 x 7 space I was using as a temporary cutting area will for the foreseeable future have to serve as my full time workshop.

Welcome to the Workshop

Hello my name is Dawn and welcome to my workshop.

I am a maker, based in North Wales, UK..

I like to work with old and recycled materials where possible and enjoy the challenge of turning something old into something new.

In these pages I will talk about the projects that I am working on, the tools that I use and ideas that I would like to share.