Transcription
Welcome back, guys. So in today's video, I'm going to be teaching you how to make this giant bush/tree planter. That I'm using one two-by-four and some fence pickets. It's 18 inches square and almost two feet tall. And just as a comparison, so you can see how large this thing is, so let's hold it right here for a moment.
Like we discussed before, a lot of people decide that they cannot build an item just based off a picture of the final product. So yes, this may look like a large, intimidating project, but hang with me and I'll show you just how easy that it is to build. This is one of our typical planters, and they're not small. It's FYI for those of you that may not need one quite as tall. And I actually like the Farmhouse look better; I actually designed this one first. It's a little bit shorter—it's only about 20 inches tall—but it's a bit wider; it's a 19 by 19. So I'll make sure to throw a link in the description to my Etsy shop where you can pick those up.
So I have a lot to cover for this big boy, so let's go ahead and get started. Okay, so for this build, it's going to take one 2x4 and 47 2-inch fence pickets. I know I'm only holding up three here, but trust me, it takes four. So I'm going to throw on my RZ mask and my axle hearing protection and get the cutting. And as always, the full cut list will be in the description for this build. And if you're already plans-in-hand type of person, I'll throw a link to those in there as well. And what I've done so far is just cut out all of my fence picket parts. So now let's move on to the two-by-four. And I'm going to go ahead and cut the lengths of the parts that I need before I actually rip them down. What this is going to do is to help reduce any amount of bow or work this board may have. We want these legs to have nice, crisp edges. So let's go ahead and cut an eighth of an inch off of one side of all of our two-by-fours. And once we have a nice straight edge to work with, let's go ahead and cut our legs out. These legs will be labeled Part A in the description.
Sometimes these videos seem like they're like the old paint-by-number sets you would get, you know, where everything is labeled A, B, and has different colors. Okay, so let's snap back from our nostalgic childhood memories and cut out the rest of these parts. And actually, this part of the video reminds me of a few comments that I've gotten where people ask me why I use my push sticks kind of like chopsticks. Well, for the smaller, thinner parts, it actually gives me a little more control of the part and also allows me to keep my hands away from the blade pretty much the entire time.
So with our legs and our cross boards cut, let's go ahead and put some pocket holes in our cross boards that way we're ready for them when we need them. And that's going to be part label B on the cut list, and that part is 5/8 inch thick. And since 5/8 is not printed on the bit itself, you can actually use the back of the jig to determine the depth, or you can just eyeball it in between a half of an inch and three-quarter—up to you. Now I'm just going to be using the two closest guides on the far right of the jig. Put a couple pocket holes in each end. Now with that done for all of our cross boards, let's go ahead and do the same thing for all of our parts E. Once we wrap that up, let's go ahead and move on to designing our legs. I just noticed that the way I say legs has a really Southern draw to it. But what I've found with these legs is by pre-marking all of our cuts, it's going to make life a lot easier when we get to the saw. So I just put a line all the way around at two and three-quarters of an inch. And now I'll do the same for three inches. And what these two lines will represent will be the inside. I'm like, so by doing this, we're just adding a little depth to the design. And then I'll add one final mark at one and a half inches. So we'll have a one and a half inch, a two and three-quarter, and a three-inch line going all the way around the end of this leg. And this next step you'll only have to do it once, just on one leg, but mark one-quarter of an inch down, and we'll use this line to set the depth stop on our saw. I actually forgot to record setting that, but we've done it several times in the past, but you just flip down the little depth stop on the side and then just align the longest tooth on your blade to your mark. And once that's all set, we can start removing the material between the two inset lines. So essentially, this will give you a band going all the way around that's a quarter of an inch wide by a quarter of an inch deep.
So you thought that was easy? Check this out. So to make the fancy little point on the end with your saw set to 45 degrees, we're going to make a cut to our inch and a half mark, but first put the depth stop back up. I do this every time. And then just repeat this 45-degree cut all the way around the board. And this is what I was talking about—something that looks complicated could be a piece of pie if you only take the time to learn how to do it. This was super easy, and look at how much more decorative this leg is. Have you ever noticed how expensive wooden mailbox posts are? Well, this is how they make them, and they sell these things for anything in between 250 and 500 a piece. And that's why these planters will sell like crazy because they look difficult. So when you're staging these things up to sell, make sure to put emphasis on the legs.
So if you are still with me at this point, you think that I have earned a subscribe, just hit my little logo in the bottom right-hand corner, or you can hit the Subscribe button; it would be appreciated. And that's all that I'm doing here is measuring down one-quarter of an inch from our inset and then an inch and three-quarters from the bottom of the leg. These will be our guidelines for installing our cross boards. So our cross boards are Part B, so just align the top of that up with the mark that you just made. And for the bottom crossboard B, you'll just align the bottom of your board with the mark that you made. And for the this, I used one-inch pocket hole screws and some wood glue. And now we have a frame, and we're actually going to need two of these. And once you have those made, we're going to be using two board C and one board D for each one of these frames. This will create our walls. After adding some wood glue, I'm going to put my two board C on the outsides and my D board on the inside. I'm going to line them up flush with the top and fasten them down with one-inch brad nails. Another option would be one-inch screws; it's up to you, but make sure to clean up all that excess glue at the bottom. And then we'll just repeat this process for our second frame. And these are going to be our base frames, so everything else will attach to these. Now I'm just measuring the same distance as we did before—one-quarter inch down and an inch and three-quarters up—and again we'll be using these as our guides for our cross boards. Now with our frames face down, we'll just go ahead and install the cross boards the same way that we did when we were building the frame. For the top board, the line the top edge up with our mark. And for the bottom board, line the bottom edge up with the mark. And then once all four cross boards are installed, I'm just going to take the remaining pre-assembled wall, place it face down, and then attach our wall and cross board combo. And once those are attached, you can actually start to see what this is going to look like. And then we'll install the wall board C and D the exact same way that we did for our other two panels.
For those of you out there that make these garden items or home decor items to sell, what type of odd or neat requests are you getting? If you don't care, throw them in the comments; it may make for a good build video for the community. And now it's really starting to come together. And you can see in that back corner where I've actually started to experiment with different colors—that light gray look looks awesome. Not sure what it's called because they just make up random crazy names for colors—I called something like Passion Sky or Hummingbird Wing—whatever looks like light gray to me. So there's my missing board. Remember, at the beginning, I only had three boards, but that's all that I'm doing is ripping down our fourth board to make all of our parts F through J. Now those parts will get to in a minute; that's what's going to make the designs on the sides of this thing. But for now, let's go ahead and install our support slats E. If you'll remember earlier, we've already installed our pocket holes. Now we just need to attach them to our box. And do not skip this step. Give everything a good pat; it's like when you toss something down, you have to like pop it and say that's not going anywhere—same thing.
Now for the exterior design, and we're going to start with Part F. We're going to put a 43-degree angle on both sides of this, and notice how both of the angles are facing the same direction. Now for parts F1, I'm going to start by putting 4 degrees on all of one end of my parts, and this hand gesture means that you put the longest part of your angle against the fence. Then we'll make a 43-degree cut on the opposite end, so the angle should be facing in, kind of like a V. Just an FYI for those that do decide that they would like the plans, I've included actual size 1:10 plates for all of these decorative parts. I know sometimes these angles can kind of run together. So now I'll install Part F with the angle sitting on the cross boards and then two parts F1. And if you're going for just the Farmhouse look, these are the only parts you have to have. I'm just using one-inch brad nails and some exterior wood glue. Bottle booger. So here's a bottle booger tip: If your glue bottle gets clogged up, just screw in a screw through and then pull that bottle booger right out. Okay, five bucks, anybody? Five bucks? I'm just kidding; I wouldn't eat it for five bucks. Now for twenty, we'll talk. Okay, so now for the shorter trim, when you're cutting short trim, use a full-length board, put the sharpest angle on first, and then cut it to length. This makes sure that your fingers do not get too close to the saw. So in this case, it's Parts H and J, which will have four degrees on one end and 43 on the other. These two parts are used for the tops and the bottoms of our X. There's really no need to measure; whenever you install, the angles will make them fit right into place. Now for our left and right parts, which are G and I, let's start with G. So we're going to set this out to 47 degrees, make that cut, and then reset the saw to four degrees. And for this part, you want the two tips to be facing away from each other, so not leaning in like the V for the previous cut. And then the same thing for the smaller part I. And again, this is a small part, so I'm going to use a longer board, put my 47 degrees on one side, and then cut my four degrees. Again, you want your two tips to be facing away like they're mad at each other. I actually like that reference; it's a lot easier to explain. So from now on, if I say angry tips, that just means that they're facing away from each other instead of facing in. But anyway, you just install these angry little boards in finish up your sides. And the last piece, and it's always the last piece, I put the glue on the wrong side. So let's just clean that up and make sure to put the glue on the correct side. Much better. And that's all there is to it. So this super intricate-looking box comes down to just a few angles. Super easy legs to build. So never let our projects look scare you off because it's probably scaring everyone else off; that means there'll be a high demand with low supply, and we all know what that means. Until next time, guys, we'll see you.