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What is more American then having a 6 foot long American Flag hanging on your wall or sitting on top of a large table area. Also I think building it with your own two hands enhances the "Americaness" of it all (is that even a word? Patriotism). This is a big creation that I have been seeing more and more out on social media and also at farmers markets. It is crazy what people are asking for these simple creations and just how amazing they look when you are done.
This is made out of simple 1x4 Tongue and Grove Knotty Pine. I stained the wood beforehand so that it is sharp looking when done. There a couple of ways to do the stars and the most rustic way I can think of is to white wash under the blue stain first and then use the star stickers for a reverse stencil when staining the blue over the top. The total time of work on this project is less than a couple of hours. The wait time for the stain is the longest part. The cutting is simple on this project and takes minutes to do. Make sure to test your staining practices first on some remnant pieces after you cut your pieces out, there should be some scrap pieces that you can try out how you want to do the blue portion and the stars. The Knotty cedar you can find at home depot and finish this for under $100. That isn't bad if you think about most of the little 24" long ones are about this price. I have a scaled down version, but I am of the mind set sometimes of Go Big or Go Home!
Step 1 - Buy Your Tools and Materials
You will need to buy 13 - 1 x 4 x 8' T&G Knotty Cedar boards. You will also need 2 - 1 x 2 x 8' Common Boards. The Color express stains are the last bit of materials that you will need and we are off to the races.
Tools required:
Material required:
1X4 T&G Knotty Cedar - Length 96" (8') - qty of (13)
1x2 Common Board - Length 96" (8') - qty of (2)
Stain/Finish
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Step 2 - Measure your Material and Cut it to Length
Cut your Materials. If you don’t have a miter saw, don't worry, you can usually get your hardware store to cut it for you. Just download the complete plans at the bottom of these steps and you can print your material cut page.... Isn’t that easy! Or if you are tech savy, just bring your smart phone with you and zoom in and give them the dimensions. You will want to do a light sand over the entire part and possibly remove some of the roughness of the Knotty Cedar. This depends on how much texture you want on the wood. One thing to note is this is one of the few projects where I mention to stain the pieces first before assembling them. This is key because it gives you a cleaner look and also is easier to do the stripes. For the Blue I mentioned above about doing the white wash and then placing the stickers to have the white show as stars after the blue is stained on top of the white. I feel this works best, but again always test techniques on remnants so that you can get a feel for how the stain acts on different materials. You may find another technique or idea other than this, if you do email me and lets get it added. Remember to wear gloves for the staining.
Step 3 - Build the Star section of the flag
Take you backer boards and mark down 19-1/2" for where the bottom board lines up. Another thing that can be done is place 4 boards together and have them be flush with the bottom and then stack these on top. Glue these 6 boards to the backer strip to the back of these and nail to 24-7/8" dimension given. The right side will have a 7/8" reveal on the blue portion to allow the other pieces to butt up against the blue and still have a backer portion. The left side is flush to the left side of the blue. Check for square on the left side to ensure that your flag is going to be straight.
Step 4 - Add the 50 Stars and Stain it Blue!
Attach the stars to the Blue (actually white right now) portion and then apply the blue stain over the top. Wipe off excess and repeat depending on how dark you want the blue.
Step 5 - Add the Six Lower Stripes!
This is similar to when you built the top right portion. You will also add the additional backers. The reason for so many backers is this makes it easy to hang if need be or you just need it sturdy and all pieces tight. Before you nail this piece check for square one more time. After you get them set and glued, nail away!
Step 6 - Finish Off the 13 Stripes.
Finish the remaining stripes. Glue and Nail into place.
After you have let the glue dry you may consider putting the picture hangers on the back. be sure to measure evenly down from the top to ensure it sits straight on the wall. Also another thing you may want to do is apply a top coat. Pick your top coat base on what you want it to look like. I usually use a Matte or Satin to keep it from being shinny. But you can also apply a semi-gloss or gloss finish. I have links for these items in the materials needed.
Plans:
If you have any questions or comments please let us know. We are always striving to be better and supply you with the best content to make projects easy and affordable. If you have any project ideas or something you would love to build or have built and want to share please contact us and we will do what ever we can to help. Stay tuned and Lets Keep Improving! Jeff
#DIY #EasytoBuild #HomeUpgrade #6FootAmericanFlag #America #Flag #Freeplans