The bird feeder is a very useful and attractive structure. The easiest way to make it is from a plastic bottle or juice box. However, if you have some experience with lumber, you can make a very interesting bird house from a piece of plywood.
Advantages and disadvantages
When making a feeder for feathered friends, first of all, it is necessary to take into account the peculiarities of the climate in the region of residence. Where precipitation rarely falls, and the weather in most cases is calm and little cloudy, the simplest and lightest structures can be built. But in rainy, sunny and windy regions, preference should be given to denser materials, and the feeders themselves should be equipped with walls and a lid.
Making plywood bird houses has its advantages and disadvantages.
Let's look at the pros first.
- Material strength, wear resistance . Plywood in its structure is considered a fairly strong material, since each layer is laid in such a way as to compensate for some of the defects of the previous one. As a result, the panels are very hard and resistant to mechanical damage.
- Availability . You can buy plywood at any hardware store, and at very affordable prices. And since it is not at all necessary to use a large sheet to create a feeder, the arrangement of a bird house will be even cheaper.
- Ease of processing . Plywood can be easily cut and processed with the most common tools, and even the most inexperienced craftsman can handle it. It is noteworthy that, unlike solid wood, plywood can be cut in a variety of directions without the fear of cracking.
- Versatility . Plywood is easy to bend, you can give it a rounded shape and cut out small elements from it. Therefore, when creating a feeder, you can take any diagrams and drawings as a basis, and put into practice any idea you like.
However, there were some drawbacks. The disadvantages of plywood include its vulnerability to bad weather. At high humidity, it breaks down rather quickly, so such a structure is unlikely to last longer than one cold season. The situation is complicated by the fact that in most cases the details of the house are fixed with glue, and not planted on nails.
Frequent rain weakens the adhesive bond. However, this disadvantage can be leveled if you cover the feeder with a special sealant, and combine the fixation with glue with the use of screws. This will extend the life of the product, but even then, after a year, the bird house will have to be updated.
Required tools
You will need some carpentry tools to create a plywood feeder.
- Electric jigsaw . In previous years, sawing was carried out with an ordinary saw or a hacksaw for metal, with the advent of all kinds of portable tools, the need for them disappeared. With a regular jigsaw, you can cut parts of any size and shape.
- Screwdriver . In order for the fastening of the parts to be more reliable, and the feeder does not fall apart in a heavy shower, it is better to use screws, it is much easier to fix the parts with them than with nails.
- Corner . This tool will allow you to cut the elements correctly at right angles.
- Roulette or long ruler . Needed in order to measure parts of the desired size.
Training
The simplest model of a plywood feeder is similar to a box - it has a bottom and low sidewalls that protect the contents of the feeder from spilling. It is a little more difficult to make a structure with a roof of three rectangles - in this case, the house looks like a triangle in section.
Feeders with walls and a roof are considered more complex in execution - for this, schemes with open walls and with closed ones are most often used. In the latter case, windows are cut out in each overlap through which birds can climb into the structure.
If you want something brighter, then pick something unusual. For example, a feeder in the form of a Chinese pagoda looks stylish . In this case, the platform with a spectacular house is fixed with standing supports, the grain hopper is made quite spacious, and the feed mechanism is protected from adverse weather conditions.
The concept of a feeder can be absolutely any - only skills in working with plywood and your own imagination can act as constraints. Even the most complex-looking feeders made of this lumber are actually made quite easily, and using simple materials at hand.
However, each case requires preparation - therefore, first, it is better to come up with a sketch and create a cardboard model of the future house. Having made it, it will be much easier for you to navigate in the sequence of actions and features of the manufacturing process technology.
Manufacturing instruction
The simplest option for a do-it-yourself feeder is to arrange an open area for grain without any sides and a roof. It should be borne in mind that such a solution to the problem is only temporary, it is suitable for the warm season or for hanging outside in winter in calm weather. It is very simple to make such a feeder - all you need to do is cut out a piece of plywood of a square or rectangular shape, drill holes in the corners and thread a string through them. The rope at the ends is tied in a strong knot, and then, under the center of the feeder, all four segments are pulled together and tied again.
For those who want to make a house with a roof, you should take a closer look at other feeder templates.
Simple construction
To make such a model, you need a rectangular piece of plywood of the right size. Next, you should take a wooden block and cut out a couple of slats so that their length matches the size of the feeder itself - they are designed to keep the grain inside the structure, since without obstacles food for birds can crumble from any gust of wind, and the birds themselves when dividing the feed they often throw it out. These strips are screwed with a slight offset from the sidewalls by 0.5 cm - this is necessary in order to ensure the possibility of mounting the walls in the future. Next, you need to make a couple more rails with similar functions, but they should be fixed from the ends of the bottom. They are fixed on the reverse side using self-tapping screws.
On the long sides near the base, the sides are attached to the slats. The feeder is almost ready, and the only thing left to do is to fix the side walls from above with a wooden strip. To do this, you need to cut off a fragment of the desired size and fix it with self-tapping screws.
At the same time, it is very important to achieve localization of the rail strictly in the center; for greater convenience, you can cut off its parts with a knife, and thereby adjust the rail to the required angle of inclination of the sides.
This will certainly increase the difficulty of the work, but the structural strength will be much higher.
Then everything is simple - you need to take a rope of the required length and thread it exactly over the roof, and then hang it on a tree. Some masters advise to additionally cover the feeder with linseed oil , but it smells for a long time and specifically - this frightens off the birds for some time.
Original ideas
More complex designs require some experience. First you need to assemble the frame, for this they cut out the bottom of a square shape and erect sides so that the food does not spill out. After that, you can proceed to arranging the supports for the roof. Everything is simple here - you just need to prepare four beams, the height is determined at will, but so that birds of different sizes can move freely and eat in a made feeder.
The optimum height is 15-20 cm.
Peculiar columns from above are cut down at an acute angle of 45 degrees - exactly under the roof. It is imperative to treat both the supports and the base with a sealing material to increase resistance to atmospheric precipitation. But you should not cover the supports with antiseptics - birds like to wipe their beak on them, and particles of a chemical can get inside the bird .
The supports are fixed to the bottom with self-tapping screws, if desired, you can additionally plant them on wood glue. After that, the most difficult stage begins - the manufacture of the roof. It consists of two equal parts of plywood, and the size of each of them is 2-3 m larger than the parameters of the base.
A small nuance: the sides of the platform should have different lengths so that one part of the roof is 0.5 cm already opposite. A bar is attached to the smaller side, after which the second part is applied to it and fixed with self-tapping screws. On this, the roof is ready. The roof is attached to supports, thanks to the sawn-off ends of the supports, this is quite easy and simple to do. It is best to use both wood glue and self-tapping screws for fixing. At the final stage, a couple of holes for twine are drilled near the ridge, and the feeder is tied to a tree.
How to decorate?
You can decorate the feeders in absolutely any way.
Bird houses decorated using decoupage technique look very impressive.
To do this, select napkins with the desired ornament, spread PVA glue on the plywood with a thin layer and, gently smoothing, fix the napkin. When the glue dries, all that remains is to cover the house with a quick-drying varnish, and the stylish feeder is ready.
Natural materials can be used if desired. Many people cover the roof of the trough with straw or reeds - such a country-style house can become a "highlight" of any landscape design. The feeder looks stylish, decorated with cones, acorns or other natural materials: seeds, legumes, pebbles.
And, of course, you can simply paint the feeder in any colors you like and depict the most colorful, unusual and original patterns.
An interesting idea for making a plywood feeder is presented in the video below.