When fences, decks, and privacy screen posts don’t have a cap—a finial—they can look kind of plain. The good news is, making a post cap from a piece of 1-by or 2-by material is easy. It looks good and it protects the posts’ end grain from doing what end grain does: Absorb water.
What tools do I use?
I use two tools to make my post caps, my table saw and miter saw.
The table saw is the primary tool here and you use it to get the angle and profile that best fits your project. Here, I left a little square detail on top of the post cap. You can also set it up so that you simply have a low-slope pyramid.
How much the blade removes is simply how far or close you set the fence to the blade. I like a 12-degree angle. I’ve also used this upgrading an interior stair’s newel post.
Here’s the video how-to.
Let’s discuss safety.
Table saws are dangerous. 3,500 rip-ems of whirring carbide can’t tell the difference between your fingers or material being cut. The key—in ALL table saw activities is to keep your fingers (1) away from the blade and (2) positioned such that if the piece reacts unpredictably they can’t be sucked into the blade. I ride my hands on the fence in this case. If the piece moves (and it shouldn’t if the fence is parallel to the blade) my hands can’t.
Here, we are using a new and more environmentally friendly composite material we love, so there is no wood grain or knot resistance. Check out this slammin’ privacy screen we built with Acre by Modern Mill.
TOOL NOTE
Since producing this video I have upgraded my SKIL table saw’s blah throat plate to SKIL’s zero-clearance throat plate and it makes my bar-none favorite in the category—Skil 10-inch table saw—even better!
Bevel the saw to 12-degrees. Try some test pieces to get the look you like.
Run one side through, then the other. If you’re doing multiple fence post caps like we are, run one long board through on both sides. Section it on the miter saw, then run those ends through the table saw.
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