My grandson wanted some shelves to display his collections, and we came up with the idea of using old cedar fence wood to make these hexagon shelves for him. This instructable explains how we made them.

Material:

4 inch cedar fence slats. These came from a pile we found in our back yard. They had probably been there several years.
White paint - some old paint that was still usable. This was for the primer.
Various colored paints

Tools

Chop Saw
Brad Nailer
Palm Sander
Belt Sander

Step 1: Preparing the Wood

The wood was very dirty, and needed to be cleaned off and smoothed out. A belt sander was just the right tool for this. We could have used a palm sander, but the belt sander did a faster and better job. It was easier to sand the whole board at once with the belt sander, so we did the rough sanding before cutting the fence slats up. Sand all sides of the wood. Don't expect a fine finish, the fine sanding we did with the palm sander.

With wood this old, expect lots of sawdust.

Step 2: Cutting and Final Sanding.

Using a chop saw, we cut the boards in 8 inch pieces. Each cut was at a 30 degree setting so it would end up as a hexagon shape when we put it together.

With the pieces down to 8 inches in size we then sanded them smooth with a palm sander.

Step 3: Building the Shelves

We built the shelves with a nailer, 1" staples. We could have glued them, but this was a lot easier.

Each piece of fence made 6-8 pieces, so you have lots of boards to choose from.

When you put the hexagons together, select pieces that are the same thickness and size. Put the good side of the board down. The down side of the board will be the smoothest and facing out from the wall. Using the nailer, drive in perpendicular to the first board. Repeat with 4 more boards, nailing the last in on both ends. When done, you have a hexagon.

Step 4: Painting

Wood this old will suck up a lot of paint, so don't be surprised by how much you need for the first coat of paint. We used an old gallon of white paint for a primer.

Once dried, we then used various colors of paint for each hexagon.

Once dried, we had our masterpiece.