- Now look here, I don't know about you
but I think most people in the world,
including myself, will at some point in their life
suffer from a dicky back.
Which can be a real pain when you're planter box
is down low and you need to tend to your herbs and veggies.
Oh, there it goes, oh, ah.
Medic.
I need a medic.
Now on the topic of dicky backs and planter boxes,
two things, two things.
Number one.
Whatta yer call an Egyptian spine manipulator?
A Cairo-practor.
(laughing)
Mm, mm.
(crickets chirping)
Mm.
Sorry about that.
And number two, with the planter boxes I'm going to help
all of you out there with bad backs
by building a raised mobile planter box
out of scrap wood that's going to make
tending to your plants and veggies that much easier.
Let's do it.
G'day folks, Uncle Knackers here from DIY for Knuckleheads.
Now if this is your first time here and you want to see
more simple DIY projects, like the one we're making today,
make sure you hit that subscribe button
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that way you won't miss anything.
All righty, this planter box is gonna be awesome.
Let's do it.
Now, in today's video I'm going to show you
how to build a super simple raised garden bed,
or planter box, out of these old hardwood fence palings
which I've managed to salvage from a mate
who was pulling down his side fence
and I'll be cutting these down
to a width of 80mm at a later stage.
Now, the hardwood fence panelling is a great choice
'cause it's durable and suitable for outdoor use.
It's a fence paling, that's what it's for
and the fact that it's been salvaged
means that it's free and that's also pretty attractive,
but if you wanna go the extra mile and the extra expense,
cedar is probably the best you can get
but, for us, this'll do the job nicely.
Now, dimension wise for the planter box
all I'm doing is dropping three of these
plastic containers into the planter box frame,
only because I have three of these at home already
so it's not going to cost me any more money.
So whatever size container you have,
you'll need to adjust the planter box frame to suit.
(upbeat music)
(saw whirring)
Now, if you haven't got a table saw, don't panic.
You still use your trusty old circular saw
and all you need to do is to attach the saw guide
that comes with the saw,
set it to your desired cutting width,
tighten it off and you're good to go.
And remember, when doing this process,
make sure the saw is unplugged
because you don't wanna lose any of these.
Cool.
(upbeat music)
(saw whirring)
And this is what we have after everything has been cut.
We have two panels for the ends,
and two panels for the sides,
but before we start assembling anything
I just wanna give the edges of these boards
a little bit of an arris or a bevel
because right now it just a little flat and boring
so we're adding an arris or a bevel to those edges,
when the two boards meet up
that should now look a little more interesting.
(upbeat music)
And just remember, if you haven't got a hand planer,
or something similar,
you don't have to do this if you don't want to.
Okay, the first step in the assembly process
is that we need to nail these end panels together.
So just get the edges nice and straight,
nice and tight and then we'll simply nail
these two pieces on like that
and this is the inside of the planter box.
A bit of glue never goes astray
and then just simply nail these on.
(upbeat music)
Beautiful.
Now you may also see that some of those nails
have just popped through.
I'm not worried about that because of your leg
going over the face of these boards
so you're going to see it.
And you can probably see better now
that after we arris those boards
how that joint is now expressed and looks a bit better.
Yeah, I like it.
With the two ends now finished,
all we need to do is to nail these side slats in place
and bang, Bob's your uncle.
How simple is that?
Oh yeah, and a good tip to keep these upright
while all this action's going on over here,
just attention couple of clamps down low
and you're good to go.
Good stuff.
(upbeat music)
All righty.
That's the basic shell for the planter box all done
but before we attached the legs and the capping,
I wanna give this a really good sand.
(knocking)
It's looking good.
(upbeat music)
Beautiful.
All righty, it's now time to cut the legs.
Now I'm going for a very simple configuration
of just a couple of slats nailed together,
just like that.
Too easy.
And the overall length by our legs is 740mm.
(upbeat music)
To assemble the legs, it's a really easy process.
All you need to do is to apply some glue to one edge.
Lovely, and then just simply nail the other one
directly on top.
(upbeat music)
Too easy.
Now to attach the leg it's a piece of cake.
All you need to do is to apply some glue
to that face and that face there
and then just simply line the leg up flush
with the top of the planter box,
drive in a couple of nails and, bang,
you are done.
Too easy, lemon squeezy.
(upbeat music)
(banging)
Awesome.
Now there's one more quick thing that I want to do
to these chunky old legs
and that is I want to get rid of the chunkiness
and we'll do that by cutting a splay, as you can see there.
So if we go in 45mm from this edge,
make your mark,
and from the underside of the planter box and down 50mm
and make a mark,
and we'll cut along that line,
and that 45mm, that should be just enough
so we can screw on some casters.
(upbeat music)
And on the end of a planter box,
instead of going in 45mm, we're going in 60mm.
Still 50 from there,
but down here we're going in at 60 from the outside edge.
(upbeat music)
The next thing we need to do is to glue and nail
a stick of timber to the inside of the planter box
and this is where the lip of the plastic container
is going to sit on.
(upbeat music)
Beautiful.
Now before you instal the containers,
you'll also need to add this support
in the centre which will help stabilise those slats.
All right, the next job on the agenda
is to attach these lockable castors.
Now make sure you pre drill the holes first
before driving in your screws
because you don't want to split the wood.
(upbeat music)
(whistling)
What a little rippa!
(whistling)
Stay with me folks, we're almost there.
All I'm doing now is adding a bead to the inside edge
of that top slat and that will just give us
a bit more width to nail our capping into.
And just be aware,
don't make this piece too wide
otherwise your plastic containers won't fit in.
(upbeat music)
Now, as you can see, those plastic containers are now
in place and it looks fantastic.
Now all I want to do is to add some capping around the top,
just like that.
(upbeat music)
Now as you can probably see with these end caps,
I've left a bit of a gap, bit of play there.
I just think it looks a bit better
and also if they're different thicknesses,
you won't notice it as much.
(upbeat music)
And I think when we get to the edge here
I'll hand nailed rather than gun nail,
that way the best chance of this splitting.
(upbeat music)
Well, I think that was a bit too close to the edge.
(upbeat music)
Just a few seconds ago you saw me cutting those grooves
in those palings.
Well, I've cut those to the width of the planter box
and then nailed them underneath
and now we have somewhere for a drip tray
to slide in and out of,
which is really handy but it does look a bit ugly,
so all I've done is I've cut a cover strip
which I will simply screw in place
and whenever you want to empty those drip trays,
just unscrew it, remove the drip tray,
and you're good to go.
Too easy.
Okay, we're now on the home stretch
and all I'm going to do is apply a couple of coats
of this decking oil.
I was tossing up whether to actually put a coating on it
but I'm gonna run the gauntlet,
give it a go and see how it turns out.
(upbeat music)
Not going too bad.
A bit darker than what I wanted though.
(upbeat music)
(alarm sounding)
Hold the phone folks.
What an idiot.
I went totally against my gut feeling
and I knew that as soon as I started to apply that oil
that I hated it, but I kept on painting.
Thick as two bricks.
Anyway 3 hours of sanding later,
plus extra sand paper, and I'm back to square one
where I wanted to be in the first place.
The mind boggles as to my stupidity at times.
Actually, it doesn't surprise me at all.
Now, one last job to finish off the planter box
is I've made this very simple frame out of an old pallet
and all I'm going to do is,
with my staple gun,
staple on this sheet of wire mesh
which will act as a wall for our climbing plants to grow on
and if you have kids, an added bonus is that this
will help protect your precious plants
from all things; soccer balls, cricket balls, volley balls,
tennis balls, frisbees.
(upbeat music)
Now, if you wanna go a bit more hardcore
with your stapling, this style of staple here
is the one for you.
Once these bad boys go in,
they're not coming out.
(upbeat music)
Beautiful.
And here she is all done and dusted.
Whatta you reckon?
I absolutely love it and so does my back.
Great tip Knackers.
Well I hope you enjoyed and found our video useful
and if you wanna see more simple projects,
like the one we've just done,
make sure you click on my playlist over there.
And if you could give this video a big thumbs up,
that would also be greatly appreciated.
All righty, after all that I think I need a cup of tea,
so till next time,
be good, be safe and have yourselves a very Merry Christmas.
Cheers