Our patio has seemed bare, so I built a raised planter for the patio. I ultimately ended up going with treated pine lumber, since it was vastly cheaper than cedar. I’m not too concerned about possible chemical leakage since I lined it with plastic anyway.
Some techniques I thought I would experiment with:
Mortise/Dado joints – I thought I’d try my hand at chiseling some dados to add stability to the planter.
Routing – I got a cheapie router and router table, thought I would give it a try for slotting the bottom tracks.
Here’s how it went.
Various designs in Sketchup.
First set of legs pounded out on one side.
Both pairs of legs slotted on the short side.
Chiseled out the dado on the long side of the legs.
Dadoed the bottom support rail too.
Assembly upside down to try to get it flatter but the angled garage floor was no help.
Routed out successive tracks in the long edges for the 2×4’s to fit into.
Test fit of a 2×4 in the track. Fits perfectly.
Test fitted together. Just gravity holding it together.
Test fit of various 2″ stock in the tracks to get the idea.
Drilled recessed holes for the 1/4″ lag screws on the long sides.
Added the lag screws on the short sides.
Test fitted the top frame pieces.
Load test. Some friends thought this looked like a birthing trough.
Moved to the patio and loaded with plants. Trim isn’t done yet.
Picked up a pocket hole jig to see what the fuss about pocket holes are. They worked pretty nicely.
Trim assembly process. Used some of those clamping jigs from Rockler. Worked great.
More trim assembly.
Never really figured out how to mount it to the planter, so I ended up not. It just floats.
Watching the plants grow from inside.
Action shot in fall, when everything died out. Lots of baby cucumbers!
Take aways:
Chiseling is a lot of work, even in pine. It was painstaking and frustrating at times, but worth it.
It’s solid. The only fasteners on the planter are 16 lag screws, four on each leg, compressing in both directions.
It’s heavy. With the dirt in, it’s almost impossible to move. You have to wiggle it around.
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