Making a Segmented Turned Planter

Its spring time and we all know what that means. Time to get outside and start planting some flowers or some herbs and its time for spring cleaning in your shop. This is a fantastic, and easy, way to learn the beginnings of turning a segmented bowl and what's even better you can use lots of scrap wood you already have laying around.

1. enough scrap wood to make 42 pieces of wood 6 or 61/2 inches long (on the long side) cut to 30 degree on both sides
2. A piece of wood large enough to cover the bottom of the planter
3. blue painters tape
4. clamps
5. glue
6. rubber bands (optional)

Start by taking your scrap wood and making everything the same thickness. After you have that done take your pieces to the table saw and cut them all down to 1 1/2 or 2 inches thick. After you get all your pieces cut down, set your table saw blade so that it will cut at 30 degrees. Set a stop block at 6 or 6 1/2 inches and start cutting your pieces. Its a good idea to cut your first 6 pieces and try to fit them together to make a hexagon. Do this to make sure that they will all fit together tightly, you might need to slightly adjust your blade angle. When you get that all worked out cutting the rest of your 42 pieces shouldn't take very long at all.

Optional: You don't have to cut 42 pieces, that's just what I liked height wise. You are welcome to cut more or less it just needs to be in multiples of 6.

There are two glue ups in this but both of them are super easy. For the first glue up you are going to be gluing the pieces into hexagons. Start by putting the short ends of your pieces on the table end to end. Then take your blue painters tape, using small pieces, tape 6 of them together in a line. Now carefully flip them over where the tape is on the table. Put a little glue on each side and smear it around till you have glue on all your surfaces, including the two end pieces that aren't connected to anything yet. Now get a small piece of tape ready, and roll your pieces up so that they make the hexagonal shape, you might have to move some around to make sure your shape is tight and set up correctly but you can do that when its all flat on the table. If you want you can now wrap a couple of rubber bands around your hexagon so that you get a little extra clamping pressure and you can also put some tape on the angles to make sure that they are all flat with each other. Do this with all your pieces and let them dry for at least an hour before moving on to the next step. Find the hexagon you want to be your bottom piece and trace the outline onto your last piece of wood. Go to the bandsaw and cut out the shape, make sure you cut on the outside of your line and use a sander to sneak up on the line so that it fits tightly. Now you need to stack all the hexagons on top of each other and give each one a small turn so that the glue joints don't line up. This is super important because end grain to end grain joints are not very strong. Turning them slightly makes it to where you are reinforcing the joints with the other pieces using the long grain. Take the bottom piece, that you cut out on the bandsaw, and put glue on its outside edges and on the edges of the inside and bottom piece of your hexagon. Now using your clamps start clamping them all together. I used 4 clamps for this and then a couple pieces of scrap wood to add a little extra clamping on the middle piece. Let this dry overnight, you want the glue to be fully set up before you start turning it on the lathe.

Look at that beautiful thing you have made. Its almost done and should be starting to look pretty good. I've had some people tell me they liked the look of it like this with the spiral of corners coming around, from the small turns when gluing it up. I however prefer the turned look.

I started by taking the piece to the bandsaw and cutting some of the corners off. This makes it a little easier to start turning and less likely your going to accidentally catch a corner and blow a piece off. Its also important that all your tools are sharp. Now find the center of your bottom piece and screw on your faceplate. Just go ahead and let your screws go all the way through the bottom, you need drainage holes anyway. Now stick it on the lathe and start turning. All I did for mine is take all the corners and flat areas off of the outside and then just kinda knocked the corners off of the inside. I did a small amount of shaping on the top lip but that was just for fun and not really necessary. When your done turning don't take it off the lather until you have started the finishing process, its easier on the lathe.

I decided I wanted to finish my planter with teak oil and then lacquer. I like the colors teak oil brings out and I love the feeling lacquer has as a finish. I started with sanding everything down from 80 grit to 220 grit sandpaper. Then using a wet towel wipe all the excess sawdust off your planter. This might raise some of the grains but go ahead and just sand it back down and wipe it again and you should be fine. Using a lint free towel, an old cotton shirt works great for this, apply a thick coat of the teak oil and give it 5-10 mins to soak in, every teak oil blend is different so read the instructions and follow them for dry time and reapply times. I put on 2 coats of teak oil and then started applying the spray lacquer. I put on several coats, I don't remember how many. I did use some epoxy on the inside to create a hard water barrier between the wood and the soil your going to be putting inside it. After that you are done. Now fill it up with some potting soil and a plant of your choice.