The actual feeder is complete except for paint touch up and painting the screw heads black. The feeder is sturdier thanks to L braces and reassembling with screws rather than nails. I also tried to build the feeder using design elements from our house.
I modified the spade strap hinges that I used on the garden shed shutters. I wanted them to look like outside corner straps. These particular hinges were a mistake purchase off of eBay. I wanted strap hinges for my kitchen cabinets and in my enthusiastic searching I found a huge box of brand new spade strap hinges for 10 bucks. When they arrived I realized that they were offset hinges that are used on cabinet doors that sit on top of the cabinet rails and stiles and not inset like my cabinet doors. The listing failed to mention 'offset' but there were plenty of photos so it was my fault. It has worked out for me because I was able to use them on the garden shed shutters and now as a decorative element on the platform bird feeder.
I used 8 hinges to make the four outside corner straps. On four of the hinges I used a cut off wheel on a pneumatic grinder to cut off the strap which gave me a flat strap. On the other four hinges I used the same grinder and cut off wheel to cut the strap where I would be left with a flat strap with a small amount (1/8th inch) of the part that made these hinges offset hinges.
Each corner would use 1 of each type of strap. But before I could add them to the feeder I put a barrel bit in the grinder and smoothed the area where the strap was cut off. Then I spray painted them satin black.
Once the paint was dry I attached the strap with the little offset part first. I then attached the flat strap with it slightly overlapping the first strap. This means that you will never see any wood or paint showing at the corner. If I had used just two absolutely flat straps it would have been very hard to install them without seeing wood or paint. From afar it looks like one continuous outside corner strap. Photos will probably be a lot easier to understand than my explanation. Seriously, just look at the photos.
I also added black painted L braces to attach the roof to the corner posts. This area was quite wobbly in the original design so rather than paint them grey to match the feeder I decided to spray them satin black like the outside corner straps.
R dug the hole and set the 6X6 post. Tomorrow I will prime and paint the post white. We are also going to add a 1X6 trim board at the top and bottom to dress up the post.
Here is a little reminder of what I started with and what I ended up with. I think it is an improvement. What do you think?
Reuse Repurpose Recycle
