What's up guys! I'm Brad Rodriguez from Fix This Build That and today I'm going to show you
how to make a planter box with a cool hidden
Drainage feature and I'm also going to show you how to remove dents from wood with a clothes iron stay tuned
I'll show you just how I did it
The planter box is made entirely from cedar 1x4s
I love the look of cedar for outdoor projects, but it has a lot of color variation
So before you start cutting it's a good idea to lay out the pieces and think about how to use the dark and lighter boards
I started off by making the leg assemblies each leg is made from two 1 by 4's joined at a right angle
I cut all eight leg parts to the same length
But since I'm using a butt joint to join the legs together
One side of the leg assembly would be 3/4 of an inch wider than the other without any modification
So I cut 3/4 of an inch off the width of 4 of the leg parts and now each side of the assembled leg will be 3 and
a half inches wide
Other than the color variation another problem with cedar is it tends to have a lot of knots
And some of my boards had loose knots which would fall out later
So I mixed up some five men in epoxy and applied it liberally to any loose knots to hold them in place
I'll be joining the legs together with a combination of pocketable. Joinery and glue on an unpainted piece
I always hide the pocket hole joints. So I only made holes where
they would be covered by the legs or the lower shelf
to assemble I put glue on the edge of the narrow piece and
Clamped it to the full size leg part and secured it with exterior pocket screws
To get a good bond in the large gap between pocket screws
I used a small F clamp to clamp the parts together while the glue dry.
I repeated this process for all four legs and set them aside to dry
Then I moved on to cutting the front back inside boards.
And here's where the color planning really comes into play
I laid out my cuts. So I would get two fronts and four sides from the same 12 foot board
So the color would wrap consistently around the box. I cut the long boards first from each 12-footer
Then I moved my stop block in and cut the shorter side boards
I think keeping track of the cuts in the board layout here really makes a difference in the final product
To add a little detail to the planter box
I put a small champ on the edge of each of the boards that make up the box
And since I'm not gluing the boards together into a panel
This will also help hide any gaps between the boards as they expand and contract with humidity
Before heading back inside for assembly. I sanded everything to 150 grit,
so it'll be ready for finish after its assembled
Back inside I laid out the boards for each panel
You can see here the design I went for alternating between dark and light boards for a racing stripe look
I laid two of the leg assemblies out and use side pieces at the top and bottom
as spacers to make sure everything was parallel
Then I put down a nice bead of glue where the boards would go
and attach the side panels one by one with exterior screws
I repeated this process on the other side and I had my two side panels done
To join the sides together I clamped down a scrap of plywood to my bench as a straight edge for reference
Then I butted the sides up against it and laid down some glue and put the top and bottom boards in place
It was a bit tricky here to keep everything aligned
So I used a long clamp on the top and the bottom of the panel to position them in place
Then I attached them with one and a quarter inch exterior screws like the side
To finish off the other side I flip the assembly over and repeated the process
Making sure my boards were laid out with the right color combination. I
Went back to the miter saw and I cut boards to the size for
the lower stretchers and for the front and back battens
Each of these pieces is gonna be one and a half inches wide. So I cut them to size on the table saw
I laid out the position for the lower shelf stretchers and glued and screwed them to the legs on each side
And while the planer box was still on its side
I attached the front and back battens. I centered each batten then secured it
to the top and bottom boards with screws
Then I put a screw in each of the other boards to hold them all flush in the same plane
Next step I cut all the parts for the lower shelf. The shelf needs eight slats all the same size along the bottom
To keep the slat edges from chipping and to add a little bit more detail
I put a small chamfer on the top edges of each board
and when routing all the edges of a board
do the ingrain first and then the long sides and
The ends are more prone to tear out in a second pass on the sides
will help clean up any tear out that does happen
I'll be screwing down the slats to the stretchers
So I pre-drilled holes on the ends of each board to get consistent spacing in a nice clean look
Which you guys know that I love I used a little plastic
cabinet hardware mounting jig and drilled an extra hole in it
It worked great it gave me exactly repeatable holes. Yay OCD,
I want to thank RIDGID for sponsoring today's video and for being a longtime sponsor of my channel
You'll see me using a variety of their tools in this video and all my videos and
they've really done a great job of extending
Their 18 volt cordless lineup with tools like the cordless router and the cordless sander you seen here
I'll have a link down below in the description where you can see all the latest
Promotions that Ridgid has going on and check out their full lineup
Next up I cut the parts for the top frame. It's a simple mitered frame from full-size one by fours
I started by cutting one of the shorter parts the size cutting minors on each end
Now I used that part to mark the cut for the second short piece to get it to the same length
For the long frame parts
I got a little smarter and I made a 45 cut on the end of two boards
Then I stacked them together and cut the other ends at the same time.
This made getting them the same length a lot easier
To give the miter joints a little reinforcement. I drilled pocket holes
on the underside of each end of the short pieces
For assembly I laid out the parts upside down to my bench and
applied a liberal amount of glue to the short boards
I used a band clamp to pull everything together and
Reference to each of the corners with a machinist square
before screwing them together with pocket screws
Okay, be honest who realized that the planner in the thumbnail
had a four board front panel versus the five board panel You see here
well this was the exact moment that I decided the look of the planer was off
The fifth board made it look way too chunky in the drainage system that I was gonna use
I didn't need the extra space for anymore
So I swallowed my pride and I took a lesson in failure and setbacks
Luckily, I'd not glue the pieces together as a panel
So I was able to use a flush cut saw and remove that bottom board pretty quickly
Unfortunately, the ends were still glued and it took quite a bit of time
and persuasion to remove those little bits with a chisel
I'm glad I did this in the end because it looks a lot cleaner in my opinion
after all the struggle the assembly and the disassembly
some of the parts had a few bumps and bruises on the planner and
Whether you hit your board with a screwdriver a drill or hammer, you can likely remove those dents and marks
All you need is a damp towel or rag in a clothes iron?
lay the wet rag right over the dents and put the hot iron on top of it and the steam penetrates the wood and
Expands the crush wood fibers if the fibers have been severed it won't work as well
But you can see here after sanding. It really turns out nice and you can't even see some of these dents
The last piece of the planer box was the bottom and the hidden drainage system
The bottom is split into two sides and I cut four cleats to hold the bottom slats. I laid out marks for the cleat
So that they had a half-inch slope from the outside to the middle of the planer box
Then I pre-drilled each cleat and secured them to the sides and screws
For the bottom. I used the worst of the boards that had picked up from the lumberyard
I cut them all to size pre-drill the hole in each of them and then laid them into the planer on top of the cleats
Now the heart of the drainage system is this 2 by 3 inch section of PVC downspout? I
Positioned the inner board so that the downspout just fit between them
Then I just evenly spaced out the rest of the boards and secured them to the cleats as well
To keep the bottom shelf clean and dry the spout will extend
out of the back of the planer and drain the water safely away from the shelf.
I marked off some lines on the PVC that would let the spouts stick out past the planner
Then I just cut that section out using some tin snips.
Now jigsaw or band saw or dremel tool would also do this easily.
With a notch cut out
I could mark the top of the pipe for a sloped cut to allow the water to run off
I cut it in at an angle and I had the base of my drainage ready
But before I attached it in place, I want to apply my finish can't attach the top frame.
I forgot to cut pocket holes in the top of the panels earlier
So I had to use my job max right angle attachment to get the job done
It worked but doing poor hand would have been a lot easier for
The finish on the planner I brushed on two heavy coats of spar urethane
And I really love how the spar brings out the warm tones of cedar and it protects really well outdoors
When the finish was dry, I went back and installed the hidden drainage
I just pre drilled some holes in the downspout and attached it to the sides of the bottom boards
I'll show you how this works after I install the liners
Before putting in the liners though. I installed the top with
pocket screws in those holes that I just drilled earlier
Now the last part of the drainage system is a combination of the landscape fabric and some plastic sheeting
I started by covering the bottom with a layer of landscape fabric
Stapling it in place and I made a little trough right above the downspout
The fabric is just to keep the soil from getting out and into the drain and clogging it up
But the main part of the planter liner is this black plastic sheeting
The plastic liner will keep the moisture off of the cedar and it's gonna let your planner last for a long time
It will also collect and direct all the extra water down to the middle of the planner where it can go into the downspout to
Let the water escape
I poked four large holes in the plastic right above the downspout using a dowel that I sharpened on a sander
You can poke holes with anything. You just need to give the water somewhere to escape
So, of course I had to test out my contraption to see if it really worked so I poured some water into the planner and
It drained right out the bag just like I'd planned
This worked out really cool and it's a great option to keep that bottom shelf dry and clean
We took the planer out to the yard to get some good pictures of it
My boys helped me fill it up with soil and plants
This could be a great Father's Day project to do with your kids and use the planter box to garden with your family
We plan on growing some herbs and veggies blame the kids care for them and learn about gardening and growing your own food
It's gonna be a fun little activity to do together as a family
If you want to build your own planter box Ridgid is actually gifting the plans to you between now and the end of Father's Day
2018 check the description below they'll have all the details there if you're not subscribed to the channel already
I'd love to have you as part of the team and until next time guys get out there and build something awesome