we're going to start this project by
rough cutting these boards here at the
chopa if you don't have one of these you
can definitely use a hand saww just as
easily the next step is going to be need
to clean up some edges over here at the
table saw so that I can get these pieces
glued
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together now that we've got our two
gluing surfaces cleaned up it's really
just a matter of gluing these together
and I'm simply going to butt joint these
together like this and add some glue if
you felt the need to run some dowels or
biscuits in there to strengthen that
joint you certainly could so I've got
all my pieces kind of grouped together
we'll just add some glue and get these
in
clamps if you want to deal with this
squeeze out it's easy to do right now if
you just get a wet rag wipe that off
one thing to note you put your clamps on
and it starts to fold from the
pressure just add some weight I've got
actual weights here some pieces of Steel
that have been welded together for
something that I've forgotten you can
use paint cans really anything heavy
just get these things to lay flat long
enough for the glue to set
up after the glue dried I took these
pieces over to the table saw and clean
them up a little bit these are the side
pieces and they're 5 in tall by 5 in
wide and these measurements you can
change them do anything you want there's
no set rules the last thing I need to do
on the front piece
which
are 6 and 1/2 in wide is I need to Mark
a spot on the W wall here so that I can
cut my roof line now my roof is going to
be at 30° just because that's what works
with this wood and it's easy to do on
this uh chopa but you could do any angle
you want so what I want to do is use
my side pieces
here and
and basically just make a mark where the
side pieces meet
up with the front and the back this Mark
right here is going to be the beginning
of my cut so I'm going to get rid of
this piece
here I'm ready to glue the walls
together and I'm just going to use
Simple butt joints put some glue on this
face here you'll notice when I put this
together I've intentionally made it so
that the sidewalls are the top of them
are flush with where this angle of this
roof beets that way when I put a roof on
here I don't have to worry about angling
this piece here to make everything match
then I just want to check it for
square and of course it's palletwood so
square is
a pretty loose
term while this is drying I'm going to
measure a piece for this bottom and
that's just going to be a scrap piece of
wood doesn't have to be anything fancy
cuz it's not going to be
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seen after this glue has had a chance to
setup you could go back through and add
some finish nails if you felt so
inclined or screws or whatever generally
wood glue is plenty but I know some
people like to have a nail in there just
to feel better about
it if we turn our attention for a minute
to the roof this is where you can use a
little bit of creativity in determining
what material you want to use you could
go the route of metal I've got some old
sheet metal you could use an old cake
pan or frying
pan you could cut a soup can down the
middle and spread it out use that as
your roofing material if you didn't want
metal you could certainly go with a
simple wood roof cut that to
size you could even start to think about
plastic this is some vinyl fencing that
you could cut into
strips make a
roof if you happen to have a broken lid
on a tote that would work as
well if you had some old shingles around
you could even take a tab off a shingle
nail it in place so really the options
are kind of Limitless depending on what
material you have around I think for
this one I'm going to use some of this
sheet
metal now of course no birdhouse is
complete without a hole for the birds to
get in even though this is decorative
and there's really not going to be any
birds in here we'll put a hole in there
anyway I'm using a 2-in
hole this is a hole
saw and I think I'm going to put
mine kind of centered
between this tree here and the edge of
course you could move it dead center if
you were going to put this outside and
you were afraid that the house might
lean we're also going to put a perch in
here as well
so keeping with this dead tree look I've
decided to use a branch from one of my
trees in the yard and here's a little
tip make it easy on yourself find a
branch that matches a drill bit that
you've
got and
then get this as straight as possible if
you have a drill press obviously that's
the best tool and I do but that's okay
it's a branch how straight can that
be now I'm going to sand this whole
birdhouse before I put anything
permanent in
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there e
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I'm going to go ahead and put a finish
on my birdhouse before I actually put
the roof on because that roof is the
last step and then I'm done you may
notice here that I painted the inside of
my birdhouse with some flat black spray
paint mostly just because this was all
scrapwood it was pretty beat up and I
thought all of that stuff in the inside
was a little bit distracting so I just
put down a quick coat of black paint
everything kind of disappears at that
point for mine I'm going to put on this
Helmsman Spar urethane but you could
paint these you could leave them as is
whatever you want to do
I'm cutting down these nails for the
roof and because I'm going to drill a
pilot hole I don't need this sharp end
on there
so I'm going to pre-drill these
holes in that wood just because I don't
want this to split
now I don't have to go the full depth of
the nail you can put a little flag on
your drill bit if you want to make sure
you don't go too far but if you're just
if you're paying
attention you should be okay and I don't
need to go the
full I don't need to go the full
distance just enough to get a nail in
there hold it
secure as you're driving these nails you
want to be feeling to make sure that
this nail doesn't start to come out cuz
once you sink that it's going to be
almost impossible to pull that
out and I'm really only concerned if it
comes out on the exterior of the
house I can feel that one starting to
come
out that wasn't planned
either so I'm not really sure what
happened in here might be something to
do with the
grain so this
one not really going to be structural
but I want to use this existing hole so
I'm really going to exaggerate
this
hole and this one will go in in an
angle
and won't finish coming out the
front so there's a slight hairline crack
right here where that nail tried to work
its way out because I didn't push that
all the way in it didn't break the
surface
I could easily take some of that Spar
urethane and put another coat on here
and that would
disappear but I can also just tap that
back in and it blends with all the other
imperfections of this
wood so that's it for this
project hope you've enjoyed it maybe
learned
something I like building these when I
don't really have anything else to do or
sometimes instead of the things that I
need to be doing cuz they're quick
they're easy and you can use your
imagination and it's always pretty cool
to see how things come
out well thanks for watching