Day 1: Birdhouse Writeup

Today was a good learning day. While I didn't fully finish a model I learned some valuable lessons. I like the direction I'm moving in but still have about a week of tooling and fiddling to get at a product that I'm happy with.

The success of today:

    * Good cuts for the gabled roof with the front and back faces of the house.

    * Perfect hole on front plate for bird entrance.

The failures of today:

    * Poor wood selection. Used expensive 1in Cyprus boards for first test run. The boards are too thick and weighty. The boards at Lowes were mostly a crapshoot and full of knots and cracks.

    * Narrow placement of countersink holes causing the front board to crack along a knot.

    * Inconsistent countersink depth.

    * Uneven roof piece.

Moving forward:

    * Pick up 1/2in Oak boards from Lowes. Should be affordable and the right size, will see tomorrow.

    * Need to pick up a couple more fast clamps.

    * Larger forstner bits. Thought 1in was large enough for Carolina wrens but 1 1/2in is more like it.

    * Add about 1in in height to the overall piece.

    * Make the roof pieces flush with the side walls reaching the top before the roof angle begins.

Little notes:

    * Maybe use #6 screws instead (1 1/2in is a good length maybe?).

    * I really, really love the look and feel of the cedar but it's too expensive and there are no 1/2in or 1/4in boards available to me.

All the best,

Parker