Hi everyone.
I’ve been working on this project (projects) for a little while now, and finally have some completed images to finalize it to the point I can now share.

Get ready. Lots of images below…

My wife cultivates an assortment of succulents in our house, which I love, but I thought I’d try and make some different, more decorative and space saving… wall hanging planters. I had the idea of using a joint in cut wood to use as an insert into slots of a piece of laser cut wall art. After working through a few design sketches and refined ideas in Illustrator, I decided that a simple box finger joint would be a great place to start.

I have never made a box (or any jointed project yet), so that’s what I did first.
I went to the makercase.com site and made some plans that I downloaded and easily opened in Illustrator. Caliper measured the ply, adjusted a few things, finally got the kerf cut perfect, saved and uploaded the .svg files. Made some boxes.

I took 2 sides of the 3x3 box, and used that as the start of this 1st planter design. I did some editing, added 2 engrave areas the exact width of the 1/8" clear acrylic, and ran with the initial concept…

Cut the back design, each side of the planter, and 2 triangles of acrylic. These are all done using maple plywood.

Quickly realized on assembly that the 1 open slot was a fail. The planter was not easily set in the slot, and I realized i needed finger slots to hold it tight and perfect. (This one worked after all, but only after gluing it and waiting for it to dry, then carefully assembling it all…)

I edited the file more, fixed the 3rd side of each panel to be slots into the ‘backboard’, and did some tests…

The acrylic ‘snaps’ right in to the engraved grooves, and the joints are tight.

To seal the container, I bought some Flex Seal at the store. It states on the can that it is a clear ‘liquid rubber sealant coating’. Seriously an “As Seen On TV” product, but it was exactly what I needed for the project.

I painted the 2 insides of the panels with a thin coat, using a foam brush, and made sure there was some in the engraved grooves for the acrylic pieces to sit in and use as adhesive for them.

Let it dry for 24 hours, and did the proof of concept test…

It works!

So, I had also tried another simple design I made…

Pushed the limit on thin cuts for this 2nd design. A bit too fragile and delicate. Now I have a good idea of the smallest width of material I can get away with. (You can see also that it has the 1st iteration design flaw.)

So I fixed the width of the interior cuts. Slot is still not updated though…

Some ‘working in progress and testing’ shots to show some process. Trial and error if you will…

Now, knowing that the concept works, and the slot issue is fixed and easily dropped into any new ‘backboard’ design for use, I created some new designs in Illustrator and made some more!

3rd design just cut in the Beta Glowforge. Added a score line to this one and the next one to add a subtle additional element to the design, as well as to test it with an additional step and see the scoring on this 2nd Beta unit. Not too sure how I feel about it on the 4th one, but it looks cool kinda on this one and the score itself is a super tight pinline and just perfect.

With masking still on.

All the pieces.

And finally the 4th and most complex design iteration I’ve done…

Bonus time-lapse video!!

And here’s some shots of all 4 designs in final form. Cut, weeded, assembled, coated, dryed, and now ready to be planted!

With some online research, and some advice/insight from my wife, I got the supplies I needed and planted them. Vision realized!

The hardest part of planting them is that they don’t sit upright without being held or something. Need to design a ‘Wall Hanging Succulent Planters Concept Planting Holder’ now!

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#4

Some shots of all 4 hanging in my kitchen together.

Also my wife and I made 2 more on Cherry & Walnut Ply for mother’s day gifts…

My first time using these 2 and the results are gorgeous. I think they look so much better with the darker shades of wood for contrast and complimentary color to the plants.

Before planting…

After planting…

Ok, well that does it for this project. I’m really quite stoked on how these turned out in the end.
I have some other planter concepts that are still in the works, but nearing completion, so look forward to some more soon…

Thanks for reading this far and checking this project out!

• R