Two-Tool Project: Build a Cedar Planter

a plant in a wooden box
Build a Simple PlanterTrevor Raab


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Whether you call this a cedar sleeve or a planter is up to you (maybe it’s a planter sleeve) Its purpose is to disguise weather-beaten flower pots. I call it a sleeve because, unlike a planter, it holds no soil. I can swap flower pots in and out of it easily to suit the season or for maintaining the plant. All it takes is adding some form of a bottom to make it a planter.

Also, unlike a planter, this project is quite small and simple. Wood is expensive. A full-on cedar planter can easily set you back a couple hundred dollars in lumber. The lumber for this costs $25. It’s a small Saturday afternoon project that any handy person can build with a circular saw and a cordless drill. And to ensure the constructibility of this idea, we built a series of these, each one using slightly different methods. What you see here is where we ended up.

Buy one piece of lumber, make two rip cuts and some crosscuts, and assemble these pieces. Then cut, glue, and attach the mitered edge band. There you are. Boom. Done. You’ve got yourself a nice little planter sleeve.

Cut Efficiently

The western red cedar plank used in this project is 1 inch thick by 5-1/2 inches wide. Yet the product is sold as 5/4 x 6 inches. Note: "5/4" is lumberyard and sawmill nomenclature where lumber is measured in 1/4-inch increments, thus a 5/4 board is 1-1/4 inches thick. It starts out at that thickness but, by the time all its processing is complete, it’s thinner and narrower than where it started. This appearance-grade cedar has nicely rounded edges that you can use to good effect in making the planter sleeve’s rim.

Begin by crosscutting the 8-foot cedar plank into two 4-foot sections. Use a small cordless circular saw and an appropriate blade for making fine cuts with a minimum of tear out, such as a 40-tooth or even 60-tooth.

a man holding a tool

Next, use a rip fence, or build your own simply (as we describe below), to rip one 2-inch-wide piece off of each of these 4-foot sections.

making a cedar planter

From the remaining stock, crosscut two pieces 14 inches long. Then crosscut another two pieces 5-1/2 inches long. These crosscut dimensions are to suit the two small rose bushes in pots shown here. These pots are 4-1/2 inches tall and have a slightly larger diameter at their top. The inside cavity of the sleeve is large enough to accommodate the pots and the plants’ top growth.

You can see in the photos that the cedar is elevated above the work surface on supports known as T blocks. These blocks prevent the saw from cutting into the work surface, and the cutoff pieces don’t fall all the way to the floor, they drop a couple of inches to a wood surface without damage. You can hold the lumber in place or clamp it. And if you cut into the T block in any of these operations, no harm is done. The blocks are sacrificial. We discuss more about them at the end of this article.

Guide the saw in making all crosscuts using a combination square or a triangular rafter square. Both work equally well.

build a cedar planter
building a cedar planter
build a red cedar planter
After the front and back pieces are cut, use the same procedure to cut the ends. That is, make one end cut, then use that piece to mark the opposite end, and cut that piece supporting it on the T blocks while guiding the saw with a square.Popular Mechanics; Trevor Raab

Fastening

Clamp a side and two ends to the work surface and make a pair of counterbored pilot holes through the sides and into the ends. Drive the screws to fasten the parts together. Repeat this step for the opposite side. You only need a handful of screws for this project. Any reasonably-sized screw rated for outdoor use will work. I used bugle head 2-inch long Number 8 stainless steel screws left over from another project.

building a red cedar planter
Clamp the front piece to the work surface and two ends. Check that the ends are square to the front piece.Popular Mechanics; Trevor Raab
building a red cedar planter
building a red cedar plantter
build a red cedar planter


Mitered Edge Band

A mitered edge band is nice, but cutting it with a small circular saw requires some patience and a steady hand. If you’re up for the challenge, begin by cutting a 45-degree miter on the end of one of the ripped edge band pieces. Guide the saw along a triangular rafter square or the combination square that you used in crosscutting.

a person holding a tool
Clamp a piece of edge band securely to the work surface and make the first miter cut. Hold the square firmly to the workpiece. Your hand should be nowhere near the saw blade as you guide the saw through the cut. Let the off cut fall free to the floor.Popular Mechanics; Trevor Raab

Next, hold a wood block in the corner of the sleeve and line up the miter on the edge band with the block’s corner.

build a red cedar planter

Now take the block and place it in the opposite corner. Run a sharp pencil up the corner of the block and onto the edge band to mark the location of the second miter.

a person cutting wood with a red scissors

Repeat this mark-cut- procedure for each part of the edge band.

build a red cedar planter
The planter requires eight accurately marked miter cuts. After the first miter is used as a reference, each subsequent miter is aligned with the sleeve corner using a block, then marked. Then each cut is guided by the square. The process is slow and methodical.Trevor Raab

Move on to assembling the edge band.

First, tape a piece of wax paper to the work surface and use water-resistant glue and tape to hold the mitered edge band pieces together.

build a red cedar planter

When the glue has set, remove the edge band and prepare it for fastening to the sleeve by marking the center of each long side and each short side.

build a red cedar planter
Install the counterbore bit in the drill again and use the combination square to help place the bit so that the pilot hole will go right through the center of the side below the edge band. Popular Mechanics; Trevor Raab
build a red cedar edge band
Hold the edge band firmly to the sleeve and drill the pilot hole through the edge band and into the edge of the sleeve below.Popular Mechanics; Trevor Raab
build a red cedar planter

Knowing that the sleeve will be exposed to many wet-dry cycles, I also drove a screw through each miter to help keep the corners tight.

build a red cedar planter
Hold the counterbore bit so it will drill at a 90-degree angle to the face of the miter. Drill through the edge band and into the miter face and stop when the bit’s counterbore cutter is about 1/4 inch deep into the lumber.Popular Mechanics; Trevor Raab
a person holding a drill

This completes the sleeve. Although this project is a two-tool project in the sense that you can build it with nothing more than a circular saw and a cordless drill, you can complete it by running over all its outside surfaces with sandpaper.

Down-and-Dirty Rip Guide

If your saw lacks a rip guide, grab some scrap pieces of wood laying around from your last project for a makeshift version of this accessory. I made the one you see here from junk wood I had laying around–stuff that was one step away from the trash can. If you assemble these materials in the right way, it produces a guide that rips with the accuracy you’d get from an inexpensive table saw.

The bottom panel guide is 9 inches wide x 24 inches long. It’s made from 1/4-inch MDF. The fence is 1/2 inch plywood, about 3/4-inch wide and 30 inches long. I connected the panel and the fence with 3/4-inch screws. Begin by aligning the saw’s shoe with the edge of the base panel, and make a plunge cut through the panel at full blade depth. Withdraw the saw; position the fence parallel to the cut made by the saw blade and two inches away from it. Next, clamp the fence in place. Turn the panel over and drive screws through the panel and into the fence to fasten the two together.

build a red cedar planter
build a red cedar planter

Here’s a neat trick, secure the saw to the rip guide with some hot-melt glue. Place the saw on the panel with its blade projecting evenly through the blade cutout and lift the saw shoe high enough to put a glob of hot glue on the panel. Press the saw against the panel. Now add a little glue at a couple of places along the shoe’s perimeter where it meets the panel. Let the glue cool before you go to work. To remove the saw from the guide, just hold the panel with one hand and pull up firmly with the other. Peel off any glue that remains on the guide or the saw’s shoe.

build a red cedar planter

The rip guide couldn’t be easier to use. Just clamp the board to the work surface and steer the guide through the cut.

a person using a drill
Provide gentle pressure against the fence to keep it on the edge of the workpiece. Then just slide the rip guide and saw down the length of the piece of lumber.Popular Mechanics; Trevor Raab
build a red cedar planter

T Blocks

T blocks are an old-school solution that has a number of applications. They are nothing more than two pieces of scrap wood nailed together forming a T: a plywood base and an upright–both sawn out of whatever you have handy. I make these T blocks the same height as the base on my miter saw. That way, they support lumber that overhangs the saw table. But they have many other uses. Clamped to a workbench or a piece of plywood supported by a pair of sawhorses, they form outriggers that give you clear access to the workpiece. They also support a workpiece allowing you to cut or drill through it without damaging the work surface. Also, T blocks are a sacrificial work surface, if your sawing operation causes the blade to pass through the block’s upright, no harm is done. When the T block gets sufficiently chewed up, replace it with a new one. Another advantage of using T blocks is that when a workpiece is supported on them, the off-cut falls only as far as the work surface, not to the floor. Finally, T blocks can support long pieces of lumber on a work surface so you can paint or stain them without slopping paint onto the adjacent surface.

build a red cedar planter

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