Hexagonal Planter

So there I was, in the shed, thinking that I was getting a little bored with a rectangular planter shape. I wanted something a bit different just to break with tradition. Without spending loads of time working out designs and wasting wood, I just decided to stick 2 extra corners into the normal design and thus the hexagonal planter was born.

Starting something like this is much the same as any other planter except that I had to break out the mathematical portion of my brain to work out the angles needed to cut the wood at. I had to do this as I couldn’t find a protractor. Who on earth has a protractor when they are no longer in school? Not me!
The angles would be 60˚, seeing as 6 into 360˚ = 60˚. How to mark that out? An equilateral triangle is the way, obviously. I say obviously like I knew what the hell to do. It was actually my girlfriend who told me that, all the time looking at me like I was a bit mental. As usual.
So an easy way to mark out an equilateral triangle is to mark a straight line at, say, 100mm. Next, mark another line at 90˚ to that at halfway along the line. Then mark 2 more lines from the ends of the 1st 100mm line up to where they meet the second line. All 3 lines will measure 100mm and the 3 angles will be 60˚. I’ve made it sound more complex than it actually is but you get the picture. At least I hope you do...

I spent the next few minutes gathering timber ready for the cutting process. I wanted to make the planter out of 20mm thick pine and give it 10 layers, which results in 60 pieces. I then spent the next 30 minutes marking and cutting as I went. The beautiful thing is that I have a sliding mitre saw which makes cutting wood such a breeze. If I had to do all of the 60 pieces by hand then I may have gone a bit nuts. Also the edges might not have been as straight as they could’ve been. I think the former was the more important reason for using the mitre saw!

To make the base I used some ship lap tongue and groove that I had left over from the old shed in which my workbench once resided. I clamped 3 pieces together, drew out a quick outline for the planter walls and set about screwing the first layer down using 30mm general purpose screws. The next step was to cut around the edge of the first layer and place the waste wood neatly in the waste wood box. I keep all my off-cut pieces that are of no real use for any project as we have an open fire and there’s nothing like sitting in front of one of those on a cold night.

The rest of the layers didn’t need to be screwed down, mainly because I didn’t want to waste a load of screws. Lost head nails would do just as good a job and also wouldn’t necessitate the use of a drill bit and a countersink bit. I’m all for making my life easier!
So, hammer in hand, I nailed all the rest of the wood down, making sure that each layer crossed over opposite to the one underneath. This would make the planter more secure and solid and it’d look very cool, too.

After a short while, the planter was finished. I added a couple of feet on the bottom just to raise it off the floor a little and then gave it a couple of coats of wood stain. The next job is to throw a bunch of plants in it and set about my next design. Suggestions for any other designs are most welcome!