[ Power saw whirring ] [ Mid-tempo music plays ] When the weather warms up, it's nice to throw open the shop doors, maybe even build something for the backyard or patio.

On today's episode of "The Woodsmith Shop," we're making a combination planter box and trellis.

Best of all, you'll make a custom copper insert all on your own in the shop.

It's time to start building on "The Woodsmith Shop."

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

And by... Kreg --from the first cut to the final assembly, providing woodworkers with products that help to simplify woodworking challenges.

Kreg.

Additional funding provided by... Titebond Wood Glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... ♪♪ ♪♪ And by... Inventables -- Tools for designing and building your products.

Inventables.com.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ You know, Chris, what an interesting project.

I love the design of this outdoor planter-trellis combo, but there are some things you really have to take into account when you're building a project for outside What are some of those?

Well, one of them is the type of material we use.

Now, we chose Western red cedar, which is a great wood to work with.

And it's good outside.

You could also use cypress or perhaps white oak or redwood.

I think another good option would be just going to the home center, maybe buying treated material, too.

I think it would look just fine.

Yeah, treated is underrated.

It's actually a great product.

You know, it's going to stand up to the weather.

Available, easy to work.

Exactly.

And then there's some other considerations we have to take into account with an outdoor project, one of which is the glue.

We want to make sure we use a good waterproof glue, and we want some joinery that's going to drain out.

So, what do we use on this guy for joinery?

Well, one of the joiner is very simple -- simple lap joints.

And if you'll notice, the fasteners that we have here are exterior-rated washer-headed screws.

They're easy to use, and they work great.

You know, this is a great blend of natural material and some metal accents in here.

And how are we going to make those guys?

I'll tell you, the copper work is just great fun.

We're going to show you how to take plain Type L 3/8" copper tubing and bend it into this shape by making a simple die.

You'll use your workshop clamps to compress the copper.

And this is what you get.

A lot of fun.

You know, this entire planter is sized around fitting three of these planter boxes.

But I really think you could expand this or even shrinking it down a little bit if you wanted to hold more or fewer of these guys.

And this is great because you can plant it, leave it outside during the summer and growing season, and then bring them inside when winter hits.

Makes it super easy.

But Logan's right.

Think about all the different things you could do with this design.

But if you'd like a set of plans to get started, they're available on our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

The starting point for our patio planter are making the four corner posts of the main box.

And like we've already discussed, we're starting with construction lumber.

It's really nice because the pieces already exist.

Don't have to glue anything up.

However, construction lumber does have a few downsides.

Depending on how long it's been sitting around the home center or lumber yard, it can be kind of beat-up on some of the faces.

Plus, it has that rounded-over edge that makes it easy to work with outside, but not so attractive in a nice-looking piece of patio furniture.

So, what we're going to do is create our posts out of some cedar 4x4s.

Now, in order to clean up the faces, what we're going to do is make a couple of cuts here at the table saw to get things started.

So, I've taken a long cedar 4x4, lopped it off into some blanks that I'll create the post from.

Then, we'll make two cuts.

And you can see that I've laid out the location of where those cuts are going to be.

Now, the posts are going to finish at around 2 inches square.

So I've raised the table saw blade to about 2 1/8 inch.

Then, I'm going to make the cuts by having the leg be on the outside of the blade.

That way, I'll make one pass, then I can flip the blank over, make a second pass, which frees the leg.

What I don't want to do is end up with the leg, or the post, trapped between the blade and the rip fence, where it could come kicking back at me.

So this is going to be a safe way to start making our posts.

♪♪ ♪♪ The end panels and the front and back panels on the planter are captured in grooves that get cut on the inside faces of the four posts.

To do that, we're going to use a dado blade, rather than a single blade.

And while the dado blade can't cut a groove wide enough in a single pass, we can do it in two passes.

So, what I've done is install the dado blade and set it up so that it's just slightly off center on the thickness of the post.

That way, I can make one pass, then turn the piece around, make a second pass, which widens the groove just a little bit and also perfectly centers it.

And I can make adjustments to the rip fence until that groove matches the thickness of the parts for the panels.

It's a pretty simple process and is a good way to add some strength to this assembly.

We're using screws to cinch the panels tight to the post, so our next step is to drill clearance holes for those screws, right down the center of the grooves in the posts.

Now, that presents a couple of challenges.

First, three holes in each groove, six holes per post.

That ends up being a lot of holes.

And that could get kind of confusing with the layout.

The other thing is, is that we don't want those screw holes to be in the exact location.

They're offset vertically so that they're not going to interfere with each other.

Now, to keep things a little bit more organized and speed up the process, I'm using a couple of stop blocks here on the drill press.

I've positioned one on one end that will drill a hole that's 2 inches from the end.

On the opposite side of the fence, I have another stop block set up, 3 1/8 inch from the end of the post.

And there's also a center hole.

Now, we don't have room for a third stop block in here, but what I can do is put in a spacer block, which matches the spacing between the two holes from the center point, so I can slip that in place and drill the center hole on each face.

It sounds a little complicated, but once you start doing it, you'll realize that this can really speed up the efficiency and accuracy of the work you do at the drill press.

Now, before we get into assembling the end panels and the front and back panel, there's one thing that I want to do first, and that's to make a decorative cutout along the lower edge of the front panel.

Now, to make this a little easier, I'm doing it on the single board before it even gets glued up.

To do it, I'm just creating a pattern out of some 1/4-inch plywood.

Then, I can trace that on each end of this lower rail.

And then I also drew it in on the back side, as well, 'cause sometimes you have to flip pieces around when you're cutting at the band saw.

Then, you can connect the dots along the front here to be able to create that nice, smooth surface.

If you're doing a lot of these, you can clean it up with a router.

But what I'm going to do after band sawing it is head back over to the bench and just use some files and sandpaper.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Alright, with this lower rail rough-cut on the band saw, it's time to do a little smoothing.

And here you kind of have to balance how much smoothing you want to do with your coefficient of fussiness.

So, for an outdoor project like this, most people are going to see it from a distance and not up close.

So I'm just going to use a file to clean up things and concentrate mostly on this outside show face.

So, what I'll do first is to take a half-round file, and file a slight chamfer on the front edge.

This kind of helps even out the saw marks already.

But more importantly, as I take strokes with the file across the grain, I'm less likely to get chip-out that's going to look a little unsightly.

Then, I'm going to use the half-round side of the file to clean up this concave curve.

And then I'll use the flat face of the file as I go around the convex portion.

I like to feel the surface, because if it's feels smooth and even, then it is, and you don't have to go looking for trouble.

Now, for this long, straight part, it was tough to make that at the band saw.

So, again, I'll find where any of the lumps and bumps are, and then I'm going to use a block plane and just take some passes to hit those high parts.

Once it looks straight... then I can just leave it, and I'm ready to start gluing up my panel.

Since this is going to be the front, I chose the three best-looking boards -- It's subjective -- to be this panel.

And I'm ready to glue it up.

The key thing here -- this thing thing is going to live outside, so you want to use a waterproof glue.

Now, you can use epoxy, but I like a water-based waterproof glue.

It's just easier to apply for me, and gives me really good results.

So I can spread a bead of glue on one surface, put the two pieces together, rub them back and forth, kind of like a rub joint.

And that spreads out the glue.

And it's time to bring in the clamps.

Alright, unlike some more complicated furniture projects, going from panels and posts to a fully assembled planter box is pretty simple here.

And that's because we're going to be using screws.

What I have is the end panel, and it just drops into the grooves in the posts.

There are really only two things that you need to consider here.

The first is to make sure that your surfaces, the ends, and edges are flush.

The other is, when you're putting the posts on, you want to orient the posts so that you have the same hole pattern on the ends and then, naturally, on the faces, once you put those in.

From there, I'm going to use the clearance holes that I drilled earlier as a guide for drilling pilot holes.

To do the assembly, I'm using these long construction screws.

They bite into the soft cedar really well, and they have a big wide washer head that helps hold everything together.

Now, if you want to and you feel better about it, you can put glue in the grooves and put everything together.

But the screws are doing the lion's share of the work here.

So once the two end assemblies are done, the procedure for assembling the front and back is about the same.

You'll bring those into place, set them into the grooves, and then, since everything is getting a little bit larger here, I added a couple of clamps just to hold everything together.

And it's just a matter of drilling the pilot holes and then the screws.

And we have ourselves a planter box.

There's a little housekeeping to take care of on the inside of the planter box before we wrap this up.

The first step is to attach a pair of cleats near the bottom edge.

I have it upside down here.

Just because it's easier to get at.

That allows me to flip this over now.

And we can install a big pile of slats on the inside.

Now, these slats provide drainage, but then support the planter boxes that are on the inside.

Now, there's a slat that gets installed flush at each end.

Then, to evenly spaced them, just like we did over at the drill press, I made a couple of plywood spacer blocks so I can set those in place in between, and now fit the slats in place and attach them with screws.

It's a good idea to have your slats all predrilled before you get started here.

Just makes the process go a little smoother.

You get the idea here.

You're just going to step your way down until you have all the slats in place.

A little bit of mitered molding really dresses up the top edge of this planter.

The nice thing is, is that this molding overlaps both the front and the inside edges.

So you don't have to be real precise.

Now, I cut these pieces over at the miter saw, setting up a couple of stops so that I know that my two short endpieces are going to be exactly the same length, as well as the front and back pieces.

Now, you could leave the planter just as it is.

It's designed to hold these square pots and could help make your backyard or patio even better than it already is.

Heck, you could even put a big, long pot in here, fill it with ice, and be ready for your next outdoor gathering.

But you can dress this planter up even more by adding a custom trellis.

Well, it's time for the fun part of this project, and the fun part is going to be making the copper supports that have a twist to them.

And we do this by creating a simple wooden die in which we'll press the copper to its final shape.

The dye consists of an inner board, which is 1/2-inch plywood.

Now, as you can see here, I've drawn the shape that I want.

And I'm going to band-saw that out.

Now, we can't just do a single band-saw cut.

Here's why.

I need my die to come together fully, with the 3/8" tubing in between.

A single band-saw cut will open things up adequately at the top crown of each of these round points.

But as you can see, it's going to be a tight squeeze here on the sides, and it'll crush the tubing.

So it's important that we lay out the full width of the tubing and fully cut out all of it.

Now, once I have this cut out, I'm going to take one side of this die, and I'll glue and screw it to a piece of plywood.

The other piece of plywood you see here will go on top of that.

And it will form essentially a sheath in which we can insert the copper tubing and the mating piece of our die.

Once that's done, we'll clamp everything together and we'll form the attractive curved plant supports with a twist.

So, off to the band saw.

I've started assembling the die.

As you can see here, I've screwed and glued a piece of 1/4-inch plywood to one half of the piece that we just cut out at the band saw.

So what I'm going to do now to finish this up is screw and glue the top half on.

And when I'm done with that, we're going to be ready to roll out some copper and form the twisted trellis supports.

Alright, then it's time to start forming copper.

I have some pieces of copper tubing, cut at 54 inches.

Now I'm going to take a little paste wax, and I want to lubricate my form.

And I'm doing that because as the copper is drawn into this shape, it's going to slide across this form.

And the wax just makes it a little bit easier.

I'll place the tubing.

in between these 1/4-inch plywood panels.

And I want to make sure it's even side-to-side.

So, the other side of the die is in place.

And now I'm going to gently apply pressure with my clamps.

And I'll keep needing to reset the clamps and gently working my way along, back and forth, until everything is fully set.

And there we go -- a finished copper trellis support, So, six more of these, and Logan will be ready to make the frame that supports it all.

So, now that the guys have the planter box done and the copper bent, we can go ahead and work on the trellis.

The trellis starts with these two uprights.

To connect them to the box, we're going to cut a notch on one end.

Now, you can do this at the table saw.

But what happens if you don't have a table saw?

Well, you can cut this notch by hand or with a circular saw.

So, what we're going to do is use a guide to create a square cut across the top of the notched starts.

Then, I'll set the guide off to the side and also make a series of kerfs along the notch.

Then, we'll come back with a hammer and a wide chisel and clean those up.

Okay, so, now that we have those notches cut, we can concentrate on the guts of the trellis.

The first thing we need to do here is to grab our cross-members And I've already marked these out.

We need to drill holes in these for the copper squiggles that Chris made.

So you can see, I've started the layout process.

And then I just come in with an awl to make that center point.

Now, with holes marked, go ahead and grab a drill and we'll drill all the way down until I hit to stop collar.

And we're going to do that in each of these hole locations.

Once I have that all done, I'll swap this out for a thinner bit, because then, on the bottom cross-member, we're going to have to drill a through-hole centered in the hole we just drilled.

And that's simply a weep hole.

That way, if water gets down into it, it'll drain out of the bottom.

[ Blowing ] Okay, so, now that we have all of our holes drilled for the copper, I've went ahead and predrilled the larger hole for the lag screws that we'll use to hold this assembly together.

So, now, really, all we have left to do is install the copper, clamp everything together... ...finish our predrilling for the thread part of the lag screws.

And I'll do that in all four corners, then drive those lag screws home.

Now we can bring all of the parts for the trellis together.

So, we have this internal assembly that we just ended up screwing together.

We have our posts that have our notches on them.

And then we have a top piece.

This top piece has a decorative curve on it.

That's easy to cut at the band saw.

And then you can smooth it out with a drum sander in the drill press.

So now it's just a matter of screwing everything together.

Went ahead and used a couple spacers to raise up the center assembly to give the right reveal in relation to the outside posts.

We'll predrill the holes and then drive the lag screws.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ There we go.

Our trellis is all assembled.

So now the only thing we have left to do is to bring the planter box back in here and get this mounted.

Mounting the trellis on the planter box is pretty straightforward.

The first thing we need to do is trim this edging so those posts will fit over it.

To do that, I held it up in place, marked the edges, and then I just used a polesaw to cut down the lines until I hit the face of the planter box.

Then, you can use a chisel and just knock away that waste.

Then, once you get the trellis up onto the planter box, you can hold it in place with a couple of clamps, and then drill some holes from the inside.

And then it's a simple matter of installing some lag screws.

There we go.

So, now the planter and trellis is ready for an outdoor finish.

After you've spent time building a project, whether it's an outdoor project like this or an inside project, you going to want to make sure that your finish is up to the task of keeping it looking good for years to come.

With an outdoor project, that's even more important, because the wind, rain, and sun can really take a toll on a project like this.

So we're going to choose a good outdoor finish for something like this garden planter and trellis.

Now, you could paint it, and that would be perfectly fine and it would protect it.

But I'm going to use a clear oil, since we have a really nice cedar here.

The outdoor oil is going to help protect it against some UV rays and water and insects.

Now, whatever outdoor finish you choose, it is going to be important to note that you're going to have to maintain that finish for the years to come.

So, every couple years, you going to need to bring it inside, sand it down, and probably reapply another coat of finish.

And if you are in a climate that experiences winters, you'll do yourself a lot of favors by bringing it inside during those freezing months.

On today's episode of the show, we built a great-looking combination planter box and trellis.

Now, it all starts with common, ordinary lumber that you can find just about anywhere.

But the look is anything but ordinary.

Now, you'll find the plans for building your own version of this on our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

Those plans also include an option for a totally different look for the trellis.

Or you can come up with your own.

While you're at the site, don't forget to check out the videos, plans, and more, all to help you enjoy the time in your shop.

And then we'll see you right back here in the woodsmith shop.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ If you'd like to get more video tips and techniques, sign up for the free weekly Woodsmith eTip.

Every week, you'll receive an e-mail with a video tip to get more out of your table saw, router table, and more.

Sign up at WoodsmithShop.com.

Everything in today's show comes from the newly expanded Woodsmith Guild Edition with shop projects, plans, tips, and techniques.

To get a free preview issue of the Woodsmith Guild Edition and a free Woodsmith book, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

In addition, past seasons of "The Woodsmith Shop" are available on DVD, or you can watch them online from your computer, tablet, or mobile device.

For more information, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

And by... Kreg -- from the first cut to the final assembly, providing woodworkers with products that help to simplify woodworking challenges.

Kreg.

Additional funding provided by... Titebond Wood Glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... ♪♪ ♪♪ And by... Inventables -- tools for designing and building your products.

Inventables.com.