How to build a Plinth/Pedestal

Me and Kat Hayes needed to build some plinths for the group show Kat organized. After some searching of the internet we struggled to find information on how to do this. During my final year at Saint Martins I watched a demo on this so we decided to give it our best shot and off we went to B & Q.

Here is a rough idea of how we made our plinths

Step 1

Cut the wood on a circular saw. If you don’t have one get it cut for you (B & Q charge 50p per cut after the first 5 which are free).

You will need 4 pieces of 4cm x 4cm or 4cm by 3cm timber cut to the height you require

a top cut to the width you want your plinth to be,

2 sides cut to the same width as your top and the same same height as you 4 x 4

Now check the thickness of your wood ours was 9mm thick this meant that we needed

2 sides cut 18mm smaller than the width of our top piece (to allow for overlap) which were also the same height as our 4 x 4.

You will also need some screws long enough to go through the sides and the 4 x 4 , a decent battery powered drill and a good quality screw driver bit. G clamps are desirable but we didn’t have any.

Step 2

Screw your pieces of 4 x 4 into your two shortest sides (the ones where you have taken off your 9mm). To do this place your beams under your wood and clamp them with G clamps or get a friend to hold them. Hold the screw on the wood and use a drill with a screwdriver bit to drive it in. Put at least 3 screws into each beam. When you turn them over they should look like the second picture.

Step 3

Place your 2 short sides opposite each other and hold or clamp one of your longer sides on top (use G clamps in the corners or a helper)

Screw them together making sure your screw goes into your 4 x 4.

Step 4

Carefully turn your plinth over (it won’t be fully stable until you screw the final side on) and place your remaining long side on top. Screw the side into the 4 x 4.

Step 5

Turn your plinth upright and screw your top on (apologies we didn’t take a photo of this step)

Step 6

Paint your plinths for this you will need a roller and a brush (for the edges). You will need to do two coats.

This is how they looked when we had finished them