Chunky Planter Build Process

1/10/2021

The weather this afternoon wasn't too bad, so I thought I'd get the first job done: chopping the planks to length.

I set up my fair weather bench and put four lengths of wood on, pushed as far into the garage as they would go:

The bench had to be slightly extended rather than pushed all the way in (which made me glad I made those steel arms quite long) so that the 1800 mm cut line would be over the gap (to save me having to raise the boards off the bench or cut into it). I marked the location with a framing square and a pencil:

I then offered the track saw up and realised that my new chisel rack was going to get in the way:

Close-up:

Thankfully, the rack is mounted on French cleats for just this sort of situation, so I just lifted the whole thing off (with tools still mounted) and leant it against the bench on the floor:

First cut done:

Completing the second cut gave me a stack of 8 long lengths to make up the sides of the planter:

Next up were the short lengths. I've got 20 mm dog holes drilled in my bench for cutting stuff square very easily, so I fitted some dogs (which were just long enough) and clamped a bit of plywood to the bench as an end stop so I could quickly make repeatable length cuts.

I'd debated for a while what to do about the length. The planks were 3.6 metres long, so if I cut them into six exact pieces then each piece would be slightly shorter than 600 mm (due to the kerf of the saw). The original planter had pieces that were slightly over 600 mm (presumably the 2.4 metre lengths I bought were slightly oversize) and I wasn't too keen on reducing it more than necessary. After a little ponder, I decided to cut them up to exactly 600 mm, which would give me 30 pieces that are 600 mm long and 6 pieces (one per plank) a little shorter. I need 30 pieces that are 600 mm and two pieces (for the new foot and insert piece mentioned earlier) that are shorter than 600 mm, so all it means is that there are no spares and four short left-over offcuts.

With that decision made, I could cut up all the pieces. With the end stop set in place and cutting two planks at a time, it took me very little time to cut all the pieces. Last time I did this I would have had to measure each piece individually, so this process was a lot quicker second time round!

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