Covid massive planter build--blood, sweat, tears (and hopefully no hernias/HNPs)

[RR 314]

My neighbors just had a bunch of corten steel planters put in and my wife likes them. I had the fabricator come over and give me a bid for one just over 30' and he told me he would do it for $5000 (or the special cash price of $4500). Ooooof.

I set the corner post and headed to the steel yard. They didn't have full sized corten in stock so I rolled with A36 and will hit it with muriatic acid. Heck, by the time it rusts through sunshine will want to replace it anyway.

One panel done. My 10 and 12 year old were no help so I managed to drag the first panel off the trailer, get it on a dolly and wrestle it to location and flip it in place. Thankfully they get smaller/lighter as I go up grade. I need a pancake hood in a bad kind of way. Welding in the sun with a flip hood is brutal. The backlight is my nemesis. A 10' plus welding table would be much nicer than welding on the trailer as well. Haa. I grow weary already but should be all in for $600 or so if I don't need to hernia repair when done. That will be the budget breaker.

[JustinJ]

We've been building a ton of these lately. Just finished 15K lbs worth of plate cutting last week that's going in Austin.

Should be fine without the corten (and much cheaper). Looks good.

[Big Lee]

Looking good. Look forward to the end result!

[ramrod]

Been wanting to do something similar. How thick is the steel? The sheet is 4x10?

[RR 314]

We've been building a ton of these lately. Just finished 15K lbs worth of plate cutting last week that's going in Austin.

Should be fine without the corten (and much cheaper). Looks good.

Man, I should have reached out to see if anyone on the green screen was in the business!

[RR 314]

Been wanting to do something similar. How thick is the steel? The sheet is 4x10?

4x10x3/16. I thought about 1/4" but man I would have had to bring in reinforcements. I could barely handle the 3/16" by myself. First piece is 43" at the high spot much so not much weight shed from full sheet.

[RR 314]

I welded the second post to the plate with 1" reveal and shimmed everything up to level and made sure all was plumb. Mounted one brace and that should be fine until the concrete dries. Will add additional bracing later. I thought about doing different level/tiers and think that would have been smart after wrestling this big piece into place.

[Hunteraudit]

Beats the heck out of my cheapskate cedar garden boxes.

[Kingfisher789]

We've been building a ton of these lately. Just finished 15K lbs worth of plate cutting last week that's going in Austin.

Should be fine without the corten (and much cheaper). Looks good.

What’s the upside to that over concrete?

[JustinJ]

What’s the upside to that over concrete?

Not sure. We only deal with steel

I think looks mostly. Most of what we do is fabricated boxes that are then installed. The corten is controlled rust steel. So it rusts time a certain point and stabilizes. A lot of people wanting that look these days.

[RR 314]

Beats the heck out of my cheapskate cedar garden boxes.

Man, I don’t know about that. Cedar sounds refreshingly light to me right now.

[Kingfisher789]

Not sure. We only deal with steel

I think looks mostly. Most of what we do is fabricated boxes that are then installed. The corten is controlled rust steel. So it rusts time a certain point and stabilizes. A lot of people wanting that look these days.

So this trend started by a woman on Pinterest? High 5!

[JustinJ]

So this trend started by a woman on Pinterest? High 5!

Aren't they all?

[RR 314]

Loooong day. Had a couple breaks for some Zoom calls but knocked out the two full sized panels. The third one was delightfully light compared to the first one! Starting to look like something!