WINDOW FLOWER BOX : PHASE 5

We are almost ready for the window box to get glued up but first I needed to create a base supports that they flower box bottom will sit on.

The Bottom support is made up of 4 pieces, 2 short sides and 2 long front & back pieces. I also changed up the joinery method to what is called a bridle joint. This joint is very strong and allows for more glue to be used where all the corners meet.

Here are the steps I took in making the bottom:

  • THE PARTS

  • WHAT A BRIDLE JOINT LOOKS LIKE

  • CUT THE BRIDLE JOINT

  • DRILLED SOME HOLES

  • TIME FOR DOWELS

  • GLUE-UP

THE PARTS

As you can see the bottom support has 4 pieces, 2 sides, front & back. The bottom support pieces are all joined using a bridle joint and you can see a closeup of the joint in this diagram. The actual bottom is just a piece of wood that is cut to size and just sits on this bottom framework. The bottom supports are basically held inside the window box using screws that I secured through the outside pieces of the box.

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THE BRIDLE JOINT

Here is the image of my bridle joint , yes I know its messy looking with all the glue and debris on the parts but its not sanded yet. If you would like to know how to cut such a joint I found a very useful article online hat will help.

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EXPLODED VIEW OF JOINT

Here is an image before I glued up the parts that make up the base support, you can see how the parts fit into each other. I accomplished this using my dado stack in my tablesaw to remove the different sections of waste that make the joint fit together. I am a big fan of this joint because its very strong and I needed it to be strong as a very heavy planter box will be sitting on it.

ADDING DOWELS

I also decided to add a dowel to the bridle joint to further strengthen the joint, this is very simple to do you basically drill a hole to fit whatever size dowel you will be using in my case it was a 1/2” diameter. so I drilled a through hole through one side of the bridle joint to the other side, then came back I tapped in my half wide dowel. Once the glue was added I came back with my flush cutting handsaw to trim both sides of the dowel and then sanded.

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ADDED THE DOWELS

Leaving the dowels proud of the surface gives me the opportunity to flush cut the dowels

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DOWELS FLUSHED TO THE FACES

Using my flush cutting saw I cut the excess dowel on both sides of the hole then used my sander to make everything nice and flush and smooth.

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BOTTOM SUPPORT ALL FINISHED

Here is the finished part, although this part will never be seen I am glad I took my time in preparing this part because what good is a box if a bottom falls out of it.

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THE BOTTOM PANEL

The bottom panel is basically a board cut to size and has 3 drainage holes cut into them.

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DRY ASSEMBLY

Now that all the parts of the box are all finished its time to see how all these parts are going to fit together, so I decided to do a little dry assembly to make sure everything fit the way I intended it to.

Here you can see how the back and front of the window box will fit into each other.

Here you can see how the back and front of the window box will fit into each other.

Well that wraps up phase 5 of the project and we are no ready for the next and final phase. In the next phase I will be gluing the window box sides together and adding the top trim to the box.

Catch you then.