Chunky Planter Build Process

1/10/2021

I made the planter you can see above back in 2007, using my old Black & Decker circular saw as well as a router and jigsaw borrowed from my father. The dimensions (1800 mm × 600 mm) were based on making it out of 2.4 m lengths of pressure-treated timber. The first photo shows what it looked like just after it was made. It's been sat in the garden for fourteen years now and the wood has gradually deteriorated over that time. However, I still like the style of it and I think 14 years is a pretty good innings for something like this, so I've decided to make another one the same to replace it. I'm not expecting this to be a very challenging build: my workshop is a lot better equipped than it was 14 years ago (so I won't need to borrow the router or the jigsaw) and hopefully I've learnt a few things in that time too.

I'm sure I could buy a planter for much less than the cost of the wood for this one, but I like the fact it's something I made myself and, more importantly, my other half likes the chunky style.

Even more importantly than that, Treacle likes it...

... and so does Bramble (these two photos were taken a year apart: she doesn't spend much time with her paws pointing downwards):

For most of the life of the planter, the end by the bay tree has been off-limits for planting as it's officially a cat bed. I guess the most effective way to determine whether I've done a good job with the replacement planter will be whether the cats still like to sleep there.

While I'm making the replacement, I decided to make two at the same time, one (almost) exactly the same as the original and a smaller 600 mm × 600 mm square one. Although I could easily just copy the existing design (which was based on some scribbled sketches I did), I decided to model it in CAD. Partly this was to see what the small one would look like and also partly because I quite enjoy modelling things in CAD.

This is the model of the large planter (including a few small design changes which I'll mention later):

This is what the small one will look like:

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