[sreilly]

So after a break from the pantry project I finally put some houses, well blue bird houses, and got them assembled this afternoon. The left side is assembled so it can be raised for opening to clean between tenants. The houses are made of cedar. Everything short of the roof is recycled trim boards that were on the screen porch. Ran those through the planer and jointer to remove the paint. The roof is aromatic cedar. The left side is hinged by means of 2 finish nails

and a screw at the base. 4 Eye hooks are on the back to wire them to the trees,

 

[sreilly]

Those are fun projects. I did some research some time ago and found that the size of the opening depends on the birds you're hosting. They also said don't add a peg to land on because it is then easy for predators to raid the nest. It's supposed to be fairly deep so predatory birds can't reach all the way to the nest. And they recommended using a fairly rough wood so the birds claws can get a grip. Finally, a trap door in the floor so you can clean it out now and again.

I bet they were fun to make too.

These were made by my wife and I after reading over the considerations for blue birds exclusively. I hadn't seen anything on the wood being rough and all we had before weren't and kept plenty of birds over the years. The lack of a peg is indeed to eliminate predators and competitive birds from using the house. The hole is high on the front so those same predators can't reach down to the bottom should they find a way to land. The left side is "hinged" as seen below. My previous ones were done so with the front.

 

[sreilly]

Steve, nice job, I am sure there will be a waiting list of tenants.

Just so I am not the only one messing up a work surface, what happened to the dog hole to the right of the rightmost birdhouse?

Full disclosure, there are 3 bad dog holes, actually make that 2 bad and 1 disastrous. The 2 bad ones were from 2 separate reasons, first hurry and second too short a bit. The jig slipped on the 1st one and the too short bit was extended leaving too little in the chuck coming loose. The disastrous 1 was from not checking the bottom side of the top carefully enough. That bench is an adjustable height bench and as such the adjustable legs are made of metal and attached to the top by screws. In the image you can see the edge of the metal barely touched but enough to throw the bit into a wobble which then caught the screw. The proper bit is now useless. I was off buy less then 1/8" but enough to create this problem which was a serious one. Not only to the bit and table but put the operator in a dangerous position as the off switch required a free hand I didn't have. The next order was a dead man's switch, received and with my router attachments. I actually bought 2, one as a dedicated router switch and the other as a floater. Some lessons learned during that encounter. Actually relearned I guess as I knew routers could get "wild" under the right circumstances.

 

[sreilly]

This maybe shows that better.......

 

[sreilly]

That is something I've been wondering, if you have planed wood to clean it up, dimension it etc, what is a good way to roughen the surface?

Bob that's not been my experience and our houses are full every year. None of the few I bought years ago were rough timber either. You don't want any finish on them or paint for that matter and the left side panel you can see is not as high to the roof for several reasons:

air flow to help keep it cooler

for the hinged side to open easier

Paul, we have plenty of the males here in late winter/early spring looking for homes. Was trying to get them done and up before this last winter vortex. We had 5" of snow (fair amount for Virginia) and followed by freezing rain/sleet today. The weekend and nest week are wet as well. I'm refilling feeders every other day, about 15 pounds of feed a week. Have a ton of finches, woodpeckers, doves, cardinals, and so on here now. Funny how they come out of nowhere when the feeders go up. Of course the squirrels love the feeders as well.