- G'day folks, Uncle Knackers here,
from DIY for Knuckleheads
and in today's video, I'm going to show you
how to make this awesome little scrap wood
Cactus planter, for under
five bucks.
(coins dropping)
It's a great gift idea,
as well as being easy, quick and cheap.
Just how I like it.
So, come on, get out in the shed,
put on your nail bag,
and let's make it.
(countdown)
(projector rolling)
(clearing throat)
Righto.
Here we go.
There's two balloons flying across the desert,
and one balloon says to the other,
"Hey mate, look out for the Cactus!"
and the other balloon says,
"What Cactusssssssssssssssss?"
(laughs)
Get it, the balloon?
The Cactus, prickly, balloon soft and
Pop!
Ssssssssss
Okay.
Alrighty, tough crowd.
How 'bout this one?
What did the Cactus say to his wife?
"Aloe, Vera!"
Not too bad.
And a quick one, one for the kiddies.
Why did the Cactus cross the road?
Anyone?
Nah?
It was stuck to the Chicken.
Hoo-hoo!
And that my friends is
Dad Jokes 101, with Uncle Knackers.
Alrighty, on with the project.
So as you've probably already guessed,
today's scrap wood project involves Cactus
and a pretty cool little Cactus planter.
And, like my last scrap wood project,
which I'll link to up there somewhere,
make sure you check it out,
it'll be a limited tools project
and hopefully will come in under
that magical five smakeroonie mark.
Alrighty.
Oh yeah, one more quick thing,
if you want to see more scrap woody type,
rusticky type projects,
make sure you hit that subscribe button
and make sure you click that notification bell,
that way you'll be notified every time
I upload a new video.
Good stuff.
Now, this is the piece of scrap wood
that I'll be using for the project.
It's an off-cut of an old verandah post
that I had laying around the house.
So, total cost?
Zero.
You gotta love that.
And what I want from this is a section
of timber cut out, which will be
sixty-five millimetres deep,
which is the total cutting depth
of a seven 1/4 inch circular saw,
and cut it to a width of 90 millimetres.
So, overall our Cactus planter
is going to be 65 millimetres high,
by 90 millimetres wide.
(circular saw cutting)
Now, because my circular saw only cuts
to a depth of 65 millimetres,
to cut right through the block,
I need to turn it over
and cut it from both sides.
(circular saw cutting)
With that first cut now out of the way,
and after having a good hard look at it,
I've had a change of heart.
I actually like the height of the Cactus planter now
to be 90 millimetres, which was originally
going to be the top of the Cactus planter.
So, I'll keep the height at 90,
and the top will be cut to a width
of 100 millimetres,
which for you imperial folk,
is four inches.
(tapping fingers)
There's nothing wrong with changing your mind!
I'm only human.
(circular saw cutting)
And once again, I need to turn the block over
and attack it from both sides,
so that I can cut through the entire depth of that block.
(circular saw cutting)
And after all that,
here is our finished piece of wood.
Now, if you can find a piece
that doesn't need all that work
done to it in the first place,
happy days.
Now, you can see on the end there,
I've marked a 45 degree angle.
If you can come up about 30 millimetres,
which is about an inch and a quarter,
set your circular saw to 45 degrees,
and we'll cut that angle down
the entire length.
Too easy.
Let's do it.
(adjusting saw)
(circular saw cutting)
Ugh!
Not happy, people.
Not happy at all.
I've cut too much of an angle
on this piece of timber,
because now it's become
(timber thuds)
a bit too unstable.
Ugh!
Hate that.
Luckily,
I've got a spare piece.
Back in a sec.
Well, that was lucky.
This time I went up 25 millimetres
and then cut the 45,
and as you can see,
(timber thuds)
it's way,
(timber thuds)
more stable.
Luckily, I had this spare piece.
Disaster averted!
Onwards, and upwards.
Let's go.
Now, next up on the agenda
is you'll need to cut our Cactus planter to length,
and the first step to doing that,
is to set our mitre saw, or our drop saw,
to 15 degrees.
Which is just simply a matter of loosening
the locking mechanism on the back of the saw,
and then rotate the saw around,
until that red pointer lines up
to that 15 degree mark.
Then just simply, re-tighten the locking mechanism,
and you're ready to rock 'n roll.
Too easy.
And just before you start cutting,
make sure that that 45 degree angle,
is on the base of the mitre saw,
and if you can,
I'd highly advise clamping the piece
to the mitre saw.
Because, once you start cutting,
that piece will start to wander,
and it's also a lot safer.
(mitre saw cutting)
Alrighty, let's turn the piece around,
and what we need to do now,
is from that short point of that fresh new cut,
measure along 340 millimetres.
Which is this mark here.
And, as you can see,
that's a bee's little toe
under 13 and a half inches.
Clamp the wood in place like before,
and then cut that 15 degree angle.
(mitre saw cutting)
And, after all that,
this is what we finish up with.
This is the face of the Cactus planter,
and this is the top.
And before we do anything else,
we need to drill the holes
for the actual Cactus plants.
And, for that, I'm using one of these fancy bits,
it's called a Forstner Bit.
And, if you want to find out more about these,
or where to pick one up from,
I'll leave a link to it in the description box, down below.
Now, if you haven't got one of these,
you may have one of these hole saws in your toolkit,
that you use for drilling out door handles.
Drill into the wood down to the desired depth,
and then you'll just need to, simply chisel that wood out.
Not quite as neat and a bit more time consuming,
but it'll do the job.
Alrighty, let's mark this out,
and drill those holes.
(upbeat music)
Now, the back's a little bland
on the Cactus planter,
so I'm just going to try an image transfer,
and I'll link to how I do this
in the description box down below,
so make sure you check it out.
So, carefully, lay it on the wood
and then just rub that image on.
Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't.
Hopefully, this time it does.
Just gotta be very careful not to move the paper.
(upbeat music)
There you go, that's not too bad.
One more to go, and we'll finish it off with a picture
of a Cactus, 'bout here somewhere.
No rhyme or reason,
it's supposed to look a bit rough and ready.
Like I said, I'll link to how I do this
in the description box down below,
so make sure you check that out.
Okay.
Let's have a look at that.
Not too bad
Little bit of a job.
And now with that saw still set on 15 degrees,
I'm going to cut this into three
nice little bite size chunks.
Now, this last piece can be a bit tricky to cut,
'cause it is so small you can't clamp it
down like you normally would.
As that blade comes down your fingers
are going to be pretty close to that blade.
And no-one wants to lose any fingers.
So, to help this situation out,
grab yourself a piece of timber,
place it on the side of that one,
and then grab that first piece that you've already cut,
slide it in between
the base of the saw and that timber,
and then just simply tighten it up.
And what that does,
is it presses this against that,
makes that very secure,
which means you'll be going home
with all your fingies!
(mitre saw cutting)
And here it is, folks!
Three separate, geometric, Cactus planters.
I reckon it looks absolutely fantastic,
and to finish it off all it needs
is a quick sand,
a lick of paint,
and then, plant.
Too easy!
(upbeat music)
Hang in there, folks,
only one more step to go,
and that's to give these a couple of coats
with some sort of finish.
Now, I'll step around here.
Personally, I was using this
exterior grey wood varnish,
in a satin finish,
it's Marine Grey,
and it's just something that I found
floating around the shed.
'Cause like I said,
these are cheap projects,
so don't go out buying stuff unnecessarily.
But I'm also sure that a
polyurethane of some description,
would do the job.
And, just remember,
that when doing these,
you need to give the inside of that hole
a really good couple of coats.
'Cause that needs to be waterproof.
And, you may have noticed that I didn't drill a hole
through the bottom for drainage,
and that's because
these will be sitting inside on my brand new bench,
and I don't want water dripping all over them.
And I also don't want these to be
sitting inside some sort of tray,
but the good news is,
is that these are Cactus',
and Cactus' require little water.
So, I think we should be okay.
Alrighty, let's do it!
(upbeat music)
Now, these are looking absolutely fantastic
and it's amazing how, only after one coat of that varnish,
those colours really pop out.
And what we'll do next,
is I'll let this dry,
come back and give it another hit with that varnish,
come back again, and we'll plant that Cactus.
(tapping fingers)
You little ripper.
See you then.
Alrighty, these are now nice and dry
and it's time to plant that Cactus.
But one more quick thing is,
that after that varnish dried,
I then grab myself some exterior grade PVA wood glue
and place that, or rub that on the inside of those holes,
let that to dry, now hopefully these are totally waterproof.
Fingers crossed.
Alright, let's plant this Cactus!
(upbeat music)
These are really spiky!
Just be a bit careful.
(upbeat music)
So, that's the Cactus planted
and to make it a little snazzier just to finish it off,
I have these pretty cool looking black stones,
so I'll just drop those in around the top,
and that'll finish it right off.
(upbeat music)
And there she is folks,
another scrap wood project all done and dusted.
And, just between you, me and the fence post,
I reckon this turned out absolutely fantastic.
And, I would love to know your thoughts
in the comments section down below.
Well, I hope you enjoyed and found that video useful,
and as per usual, a big thumbs up is
always greatly appreciated.
Make sure you hit that subscribe button,
for more handy tips,
and if you want to see more scrap wood type projects,
make sure you click on my playlist,
which should be up there, somewhere.
So, make sure you check that one out.
Alright.
This has been fun.
Thanks for watching.
I think it's time for a cup of tea,
so 'til next time, be safe.
And, I'm out of here.
Cheers.