By Tim
Johnson
Thrill the garden lover in your family with one (or
more!) of these easy-to-make projects.
Before you set aside your push sticks and dust mask for the season, make something to enjoy all summer. Each one of these projects takes only about a day to build, once you’ve got all the materials. They’re designed for outdoor use—made from rot-resistant woods and assembled with weatherproof glue and rust-resistant fasteners. Protected with a finish or not, they’ll enhance your garden or deck for years to come.
This sturdy little stand is perfect for your deck or patio. It’s got room for
your favorite plants and it doesn’t take up a lot of space. When the weather
gets cold, you can easily bring it, and a bit of summertime, indoors.
There’s no complicated
joinery, just glue and screws. The legs simply chase each other around the
base, like a pinwheel. The arms follow suit, but they’re offset, so your plants
have plenty of room to grow.
Once you make templates for
the legs and arms and the jig for routing the discs, you’ll have the stand
together in no time. For tools, you’ll need a tablesaw, jigsaw, router and a
drill, plus clamps and a file or rasp. If you use construction-grade lumber,
you won’t need a planer or jointer. Rip the 1-1/2-in.-square column from a
straight, clear 2x4 and use 1x stock for everything else. We went whole-hog,
making ours out of mahogany. We spent about $100 for rough stock and milled it
ourselves.
Detail 1: Optional Pot
Spike
12. To keep your plants from getting blown off
their discs by the wind, you may want to install pot spikes (G) in the arms and
legs (Fig. A, Detail 1). Drill out the discs’ center holes, as well as
the corresponding screw holes in the legs and arms, with a 3/8-in. bit. Then
glue sharpened mahogany or white oak dowels into the arms and legs. Slip the
discs over the dowels and fasten them with the remaining screws. Stake your
plants on the dowels, using the drainage hole in the bottom of the pot. Provide
air space between the pot and the disc by using a plastic "deck
protector" (available at garden stores).
A stop block ensures perfect alignment when you mount the legs. First, clamp the stop block to the column. Then, clamp the leg to the stop block, making sure the bottoms of the leg and column are flush. After drilling pilot holes, countersink and drill out the leg holes so the screws will slip through and fit flush.
Routing
the Wooden Discs
To avoid tearing out the discs, you’ve got to make four passes, so you can
always rout "downhill," following the grain. Make the
counterclockwise passes (Steps 1 and 2) first. The two clockwise passes (Steps
3 and 4) require extra care, because you’re advancing the router in the same
direction as the spinning bit. K eep a firm grip, as the router has a tendency to jump
or skip ahead when the bit contacts the wood
Leg and Arm Profiles
The legs and arms share the same curve, so you really only have to make one
template. Enlarge this pattern at a copy center by 250 percent and then again
by 202 percent, until th
e dimensions are correct.
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Glue the arm support blocks to the column, two at a time. Keep them properly aligned by going easy on the glue and using finger pressure to initially set the joint. Wait until the blocks are firmly attached before clamping. Once installed, these four triangular blocks create a mount for the arms that’s offset from the legs.
Rout perfect discs easily with a simply made two-piece jig. The block allows you to clamp the assembly to your workbench. The template lets you rout the round shape. Orient the screws at a 45-degree angle to the disc’s grain. Then the disc will be fully supported across the grain when it’s mounted.
Make any climbing plant happy with
this 6-ft. tall, free-standing trellis. We used dadoes, glue and screws to
fasten the slats because trellises take a beating each year when you tear off
the old vines. We built our trellis from cypress, one of the longest-lasting
outdoor woods. Ours was recycled from old water tanks and cost about $175 (see Sources, page 98). White oak, at $60, would
also be a good choice.
Marking the legs for the dadoes can be confusing, but if you follow our marking
procedures (Photos 1 through 4, page 75), you can’t mess up. Even with our
easy-to-make jigs, routing 68 dadoes is noisy, dusty and tedious (Fig. B and Photo 5). But once they’re done, the dadoes
make assembly foolproof. There’s only one angle to remember: Everything slopes
6 degrees.
You’ll need an angled template, made with the miter gauge on your tablesaw, to
make the dadoing jigs. You’ll also need a router with a straight bit to cut the
dadoes, and a drill with a slotted tip for all the screws. We used a jointer
and planer to mill our parts to thickness, but they could also be ripped to
size on a tablesaw. The slats are thin, so be sure to use a push stick.
Following this sequence guarantees a successful layout
Detail
1: Optional Anchor Spikes
For windy conditions, you may want to anchor your trellis with aluminum spikes
on each leg. For longer life, soak the ends of the legs in wood preservative or
coat them with epoxy
Mark the bottoms of the legs.
Bundle the legs together and mark the front and back faces as one pair and the
two side faces as the other.
Mark
the first pair of faces.
The dadoes on the front and back faces match, so they can be marked at the same
time. Arrange the legs with the triangles at the top. After aligning the ends,
draw reference lines every 8 in. to mark the dadoes. Then go back and mark the
slope, which runs outward from the center of each pair.
Mark the second pair of faces.
Rearrange the legs with the circles at the top, and align the ends. Then mark
the dadoes, using the same 8-in. spacing. This time, however, start 4 in. from
the bottom. As you can see from the mark on the right, these dadoes are offset
from the other pair of faces.
Your
bundle should look like this.
Check to see that each leg has its two outside faces marked, that the marks are
staggered, and that the slope of the dadoes is clearly indicated.
Cut
angled dadoes in the legs.
Slide the leg in, top end first, making sure that its slope indicators run the
same direction as the jig. Align the dado reference line on the leg with the
top inside shoulder of the jig’s dado, clamp and rout. Remember: The reference
line always marks the top of the dado and the slope indicator should always be
in the router’s path.
Assemble one face at a time.
Frame each face by fastening the top and bottom slats to a pair of legs. Then mark, cut and install the
middle slats.
Jigs
for Routing Angled Dadoes
Because the sides taper, you need two mirror-image jigs, both angled 6 degrees
from perpendicular. Use a template cut at 84 degrees to set the angle. Make the
arms from extra leg stock. To get the proper spacing, slide another piece of
extra leg stock between the arms when you mark the angles, fasten the fences
and rout the dadoes. Use a spacer to keep the fences parallel so the dadoes are
the same width on both jigs. The spacer’s width depends on the diameter of the
bit you use and the size of your router’s baseplate. For example, to make the
1-1/8-in.-wide dadoes, using a 1/2-in. straight bit in a router with a 6-in.
diameter base, the spacer is 6-5/8-in. wide.
Tapered Pyramidal Spire
The lower half of the spire continues the 6-degree taper of the sides. The top
half accentuates the pyramidal shape. Ready-made spires, some with copper
details, are also available at home centers and garden stores.
If you can build a box, you can build this planter. It’s much sturdier than
most commercial versions, so it should last for many years. It’s also the
perfect opportunity for you to try your hand at shingling!
The opening accommodates a
30-in. drop-in plastic window-box planter. They’re available at any garden
store in several lengths. You could easily alter the design to fit a
different-size box, or to accommodate individual pots. A square version of this
planter would also look great.
All the materials you need
lie waiting at a full-service lumberyard. You don’t have to be choosy about the
CDX exterior-grade plywood, but it pays to look through the cedar stock for
straight, knot-free boards. If you invest in a bundle of top-grade red cedar
shingles (about $45), you’ll easily have enough to cover two planters. Lower
grade bundles cost half as much, but have lots of knotty pieces that you won’t
use. Our total cost, including the plastic planter and top-grade shingles, was
about $95.
We cleaned up the 2x6 stock
and 5/4 decking with a jointer and planer and cut all the pieces to size on a
tablesaw. We used a bandsaw to cut the wide bevels on the top pieces, and a
biscuit cutter and biscuits to reinforce the top’s miter joints.
However, you can make a simpler version of this planter without having a shop full of tools. Except for the wide bevels, all of the cuts can be made with a circular saw and a 10-in. miter saw. Just make the top out of thinner stock and leave it flat (substitute 7/8-in.-thick cedar siding, the stuff with one rough and one smooth side, for the top and the legs). You don’t have to use biscuits in the miters. Keep the pieces aligned by pin-nailing the corners and let the weatherproof glue hold the joint. A drill, hammer and clamps complete the gotta-have tool list.
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Fasten
the legs with the box upside-down. Keep the legs flush
with the top of the box, and the planter will sit square. Apply glue and hold
the leg with a clamp so it doesn’t slip when you drive the screw. Flip the
assembly over and install another screw near the top. Remove the clamp and
move on to the next leg |
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Install
the shingles in four courses. |
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Cut stacked slots for
biscuits, to reinforce the miter joints. Use a spacer to lift the second slot
above the first. |
Glue the mitered top
on a flat surface. Draw the joints together by alternately adjusting the
pressure on the three clamps. Waxed paper keeps the top from gluing itself to
your bench! |