Frame & Panel Planters

A pair of pretty planters for your front porch

Over the years, longtime contributor Bill Sands designed and built many projects that have graced the pages of Woodcraft Magazine. Unfortunately, Bill passed away in April 2023, in the middle of building what would become his last project for us: these elegant frame and panel planters. In honor of Bill, we took over the build and are pleased to share it with you here.

Designed to grace an entryway, the planters elevate a floral display to a pleasing eye level. The tapered shape lightens the base, while cleverly crosshatched panels add dimension and detail. Made of cypress and assembled with rot-proof plastic biscuits, they’re designed to weather the outdoor world. In the shop, a handful of useful jigs simplify the tasks of assembling the frames, crosshatching the panels, and milling the grid that supports the pots. Plus, these jigs make it easy to build a matched set with not much more effort than it would take to build one. So elevate your plants—and your front porch décor—with your own paneled pair.

This is Bill’s last project for us, but click here to check out the other projects he’s done in the past.

Tall, Tapered, and Crosshatched

Each planter consists of four identical, tapered frame-and-panel assemblies that are mitered together at the corners to form an inverted, truncated pyramid. The rails are connected to the stiles with pocket screws. The top and bottom end of each frame is beveled at 5° and their long edges are mitered at 44.8°. The miter joints are aligned and reinforced with two-piece plastic biscuits (see Buyer’s Guide, below) instead of standard beechwood biscuits, which tend to rot. Each frame contains two panels that receive a crosshatch pattern courtesy of a simple router jig. The panels are rabbeted into the frame openings and are held in place with fender washers. A half-lapped grid panel sits on cleats installed inside the planter, ready to support a potted plant while allowing drainage.

Make the side frame

To start, make a single frame, then use that frame to make a jig to aid in constructing the other seven frames. At the table saw, adjust a miter gauge 5° off square. Cut one top rail to become a 14” long trapezoid and two stiles to become 37” long parallelograms. Drill pocket holes in the top rail before gluing and screwing it in between the stiles. Measure the diagonals to ensure symmetry. Hold the bottom rail in place and mark it for length before cutting it with the same table saw set up. Glue and screw the bottom rail in place.

Miter top rail. With the miter gauge set at 5°, cut the top rail and both of the stiles to the lengths specified.

Angled drilling. Register the rail in the pocket-hole jig with it tilted to match the angled cut on the end. Drill two holes, then flip and repeat. Keep each hole at least 1⁄2” from the edge, allowing for the rabbet later.

Mark bottom rail to fit. With the top rail and stiles assembled, measure and mark the bottom rail, then miter to length.

Construct the frame jig. Adhere the cleats around the assembled frame with double-faced tape. Then screw through the plywood to anchor them in place.

Trim to size

Decide where the eyes will go, and draw a line around the turned lure at that location. Note, if you’re making a pair of poppers, you’ll mark and drill for two sets of eyes near the blank’s center. Chuck a 5/16” brad-point bit in your drill press and bore a shallow hole into the lure on the marked line. Then rotate the lure 180 degrees and repeat for the second eye. To add a hook along the belly of the lure, drill a hole now to receive a small eye hook. Then use either a handsaw or bandsaw to split the poppers, then cut the lure free of its square ends. Hollow the mouth of the poppers using a rotary carving burr. I mounted it in my drill press, but you can also turn to a rotary tool or flex shaft.

Mark the center rail. Locate the center rail in the frame and mark it for length before mitering the ends at the table saw.

Add center cleat. After adding the center rail to the first frame, attach a cleat to the jig to easily locate the center rail on the other frames.

Shape and miter the frames

At the router table, cut 1/4” wide × 3/8” deep rabbets for the panels around the inside of the frame openings in several shallow passes. Add a horizontal fence to your table saw (download plans for the one used here from onlineEXTRAS) and tilt the blade to 5°. Adhere a straightedge to the frame with double-faced tape. Run the straightedge along the horizontal fence to bevel the top and bottom of each frame. To miter the long edges, tilt your table saw blade to 44.8°. Tape a spacer to the frame’s outside face, and adjust the fence so the blade cuts right to the corner of the stile. Run the frame on edge to make the cut. Note that on a right-tilting saw, you’ll need to place the fence to the left of the blade.

Rout the recess. Rabbet around the inside of the frame openings, guiding the pieces against the bit’s bearing, and feeding against the rotation of the bit.

Bevel frames’ top and bottom. With a straightedge taped to the frame parallel to the rails, bevel both the top and bottom edges of the frame.

Miter frame edges. Tape a spacer to the stile, parallel to its outside edge. Adjust the fence to position the frame so the cut leaves a knife-edge bevel on the frame stiles.

Make and crosshatch the panels

Resaw and edge glue stock as needed to make the wide, thin panel blanks. Cut one top and one bottom panel to serve as templates, sizing them to fit in the openings of one frame. Make the tapered cuts with the help of a horizontal fence attached to your table saw fence as shown. Round the corners to fit in the rabbets. Then tape these templates to the rest of the panel blanks and trim the blanks to size at the table saw. Cut the panels’ crosshatch pattern guiding the router with the jig shown below. For the top panels, start by aligning the jig over lines drawn from corner to corner. Rout an × across the panel, then register the jig with a 5/16” dowel as you make subsequent cuts across the panel. The process is the same for the bottom panels, but instead of making the initial cuts from corner to corner, start them in the top corner and copy the angle from the top panel.

Make panel template. Align the horizontal fence with the outside of the blade. Tape a pushpad along the layout lines and guide it along the fence to trim the panel to shape.

Trim to size. With the template taped on top, guide the sandwich along the horizontal fence to cut the blank to shape. Then nibble away at the corners to round them.

Hatch a plan. Align and clamp the crosshatching jig to mill a 1⁄8” deep v-groove corner-to-corner across the panel. Then install a dowel to align the new cut with the groove in the jig, before plowing another v-groove parallel to the first. Work your way to the corner, then start at the center again to groove the other half. Repeat the process to finish the crosshatch pattern.

Assemble the frames

Make a drilling guide by boring two 1”-dia. holes through a 1/2 × 3 × 17” scrap of plywood. Space the holes 12” apart, and center them across the piece’s width. Place the panels in their rabbets, then drill two 1/16” deep recesses along the sides of each panel. Drill pilot holes in the center of the recesses and fasten the panels in place with #6 × 3/4” screws and fender washers. Lay out and cut biscuit slots along the length of the beveled edge, keeping the biscuit slots close to the panels’ inside face. Install one half of the plastic biscuit in the slots along one edge, and the complementary half in the mating edge’s slots. Apply glue to the edges and assemble. Clamp to dry.

Add the biscuits. Place the tip of the biscuit at one end of the slot and tap it into place. Repeat the process with the mating pieces.

Drill for washers. Drill the washer recesses with a 1" Forstner bit. The centers of the recesses should be on the stiles, about 1⁄8" in from the rabbet’s edge.

Slot the frames. With the panels temporarily removed, cut three biscuit slots into the mitered face of each stile. The spacing isn’t critical, just be sure the mating slots align with each other.

Match and snap. Apply glue to the mitered edges, then snap the biscuit halves together. Clamp or tape to close any gaps until the glue dries.

Make the brackets and grids, and finish up

Cut four pieces of 1 × 12 to 18” long. Install a top-bearing router bit in a hand router and cut a series of 3/8” deep × 2” wide dados across the pieces, guiding the router with the jig shown at bottom. Rip the stock into 2” wide strips. Apply glue to the mating surfaces and lap the pieces together to form the grids. Tilt your table saw blade over 5° and cut the grids to the size shown on p. 32 employing the horizontal fence and pushpad as you did when making the panel templates. Cut the cleats to size and screw them in place inside the planters. Also cut the triangular feet to size and screw them in place. Finish the entire planter with a durable outdoor finish. We chose General Finish’s milk paint, topcoated with GF Satin Exterior for added gloss. Put the planters in place and fill the base with sandbags resting on the triangular feet. Install the grid and top with a potted plant.

Rout half laps. Cut the first dado about 1” from one end of the grid stock. Then register the grid jig’s 2”-wide underside guide in that cut to position the jig for the next cut. Repeat along the length of the board.

Rip grid pieces. Cut the grid stock into a series of strips measuring 2” wide and 18” long.

Assemble the grid. Fit the grid pieces together, applying glue to the mating surfaces. Clamp the outer joints and apply a weight to the middle until the glue dries.

Buyer’s Guide