backyard chickens.

So with a little bit of cajoling from K - I caved and agreed to getting some chicks to raise in the backyard. It seemed like they'd pretty much take care of themselves, they're 'green' (i.e. they create great - umm, waste - for compost that people actually buy at big box home improvement stores and they eat food scraps and bugs and take care of the yard), and - maybe best of all - they'll lay delicious eggs.

It seems the idea of raising a backyard flock is pretty popular these days so by no means is this anything revolutionary, but it's sort of a big step for me. No worries though - as soon as we got our cardboard box of chirping chicks home from the local feed store I was hooked.

Our little chicks act more like puppies playing with each other than chickens... they chase each other around, never peck at one another, and sleep in a big ball of feathers with their heads all on one another. They're adorable.

But clearly getting chicks necessitated building them a suitable home. Not wanting to invest hundreds and hundreds of dollars whilst trying to keep things simple I opted for an A-frame design. But I couldn't just throw together some 2x4 + plywood monstrosity... I wanted it to - well - sort of match the house. Or at least look like it belonged in the same yard. Details details...

So I went to The Depot and picked out a bunch of outdoor treated (not pressure-treated) stock and got to work...

First things first... construct the A-frame and attach the chicken wire -

One end would have a door for them to come in and out cos we planned on letting them free range in the backyard (which would mean having to throw up a chicken fence - but fortunately I found a huge spool of 2x2" fence wire behind the garage perfectly suited for that) and the other would be solid. I had lots of leftover cedar shake from doing the front porch gable (and finishing it) and garage so I thought that'd be a nice touch.

So then for the nest box something like this -

To build each of the panels I just used a sheet of thin plywood I had leftover - then tacked on some leftover roofing felt and 1x3s for trim to get things started -

Then stapled on the shingles -

and boom!

Same thing for the back -

Added some acrylic sheet roofing to the non-nest side for wind/rain protection whilst still letting in light, painted the trim to match the garage and back doors (Benjamin Moore HC-10 stuart gold) and stained the cedar to match the gables and... A-frame chicken coop!

Granted... it'll require some improvements - like another matching panel to go below the nest box on the west side of the coop to protect the little girls from wind/rain and keep them dry (stupid rain). And we'll see what else - but at least for now they have a nice little home for when they're not out and about pecking in their run.

I do love these little chickens...

(Whisper - New Hampshire Red - in front with her sister Willow - same breed - behind... and little Thump - Americauna - on the right... )

(Thump and - umm - either Whisper or Willow... )

(Thump... the crazy one... )

(And little Dori... )

router table.

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It was time.

I want to be able to build my own picture frames (along with many, many other things) and so I tested doing that towards the end of last year. But it was stupid difficult with the router setup I had (which involved a $20 garage sale Ryobi router - which worked okay by itself so that wasn't the big deal - but no table or easy way to route small stock like that used for frames). At the same time - I realized of course it would be really stupid easy if only I had a router table.

So I searched the ol' Craigslist and found someone selling a nice Rockler tabletop for fifty bucks. Check. And being cheap - uhh, I mean 'thrifty' - I scrounged and scrounged for a way to make that ol' garage sale router work (which would have involved making my own router plate - no big deal actually - but ultimately it would be a total pain in the butt trying to a) change the bit with the router mounted under the tabletop and b) detach the router from the table for those projects where I would want to use it handheld).

So it became obvious I would need to cough up some change for a new tool. Rather than just make due again - I searched and searched and landed on the primo Porter-Cable 895pk (which included a plunge base for handholding the tool and a fixed base to mount to a table, along with a gadget to adjust the depth of the router bit from above the table).

Next up... a stand for the Craigslist find tabletop.

Of course I could buy one - but that'd be no fun. So I scrounged up a plan for one and got to work...

First we planed all the 2x4 stock -

Then I went to town on all the dados... which turned out to be a major pain but in the end I learned a couple of things - it just took WAY longer than anticipated -

(I had started using a router but realized quickly it was way too much material to remove with a router so moved to the table saw-slash-chisel combo... )

(... then used the router to clean up the dados... )

And... done -

Then glued the legs up -

In the meantime - I drilled 3/4" holes in the stretchers to insert hardwood dowels (since the screws holding them together would be drilled into end grain which isn't very strong and the wood could split). Then inserted the glued dowels -

And screwed them to the legs -

Added two 3" wheels to the back legs cos I knew this table would need to be mobile -

Then got to work on the switch I wanted to install so I wouldn't have to always reach under the table every time I needed to turn the router on and off. This took a few additional parts (but ended up being the easiest part of the whole assembly - I love electrical!) - including a 4" metal box, 15A outlet and switch, 14/3 15A extension cord and some miscellaneous electrical things I had lying around.

The wiring schematic looked like this -

Then I got to have some fun wiring it up!

Then attached to the stand...

And the stand was complete!

Now then... for the tabletop. Uhh - turns out what I bought from the dude on Craigslist was not in fact a router tabletop... but a drill press table top. No worries though actually (the only real difference was the drill press table top didn't have a miter slot - but after some Googling I agreed with a lot of opinions out there that a miter slot really isn't all that useful). And maybe most importantly - the used tabletop came with a fancy Rockler fence which was worth more than $50 in and of itself...

So I visited the local woodworking store, got hooked up - and went to work.

Here then is the tabletop... before -

I traced the outline of the cutout I would need to insert the fancy router table plate I bought and rough cut it with a jigsaw -

Then taped the jig to the table -

And routed the rest of the opening with a 1" pattern bit -

To get the final opening like so -

Along with the jig and plate - I had also gotten a leveling kit for the plate to level it to the tabletop (shown attached from the underneath here) -

Then it was time to (finally!) mount the router to the plate. And - uhh - this is where the trouble really insued... Sparing the details - basically the plate kit came with the (seemingly) necessary screws for a few different brands of routers (along with various holes for those different brands - why router brands can't just all get on the same page and have a universal standard for router bases I don't know... ). But two of the screws (#10-24) included for the Porter Cable routers didn't quite tighten - and in the process of trying to tighten one of them it - uhhhhhh - broke off in the router base.

Awesome.

In my after-that-little-fact sleuthing I read in some fine print an update to the plate's product description -

Sweet. Good to know. Well... a little late for that info...

(note the 1/2" screws I had to purchase)

(and the plastic sub-base - which indeed is not supposed to be mounted to the plate with the router base as I correctly had it - but which ended up being why one of the 3/4" screws it included broke)

But... after all that (and scrounging yet again for a new base on Ebay - which isn't the biggest deal cos now I'll use the base with the broken-off screw as a fixed but unattached base - for when I don't want/need the plunge base - and leave the Ebay find base permanently attached to the table)... it was finished!

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Now time to use this puppy! It'll be soooo much easier routing things with a table!


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Things learned:

- THINK about the design and putting all the steps in order to achieve the most accurate fits of pieces and - ultimately - the most beautiful finished work (see below... )
- ALWAYS leave extra material when first cutting stock 'to length' (particularly for the planer - see #3)
#1 - if being joined, do not necessarily cut wood stock exactly to size (case in point: drilling the rails and inserting the dowels - once inserted, the rails really needed to be planed on both top/bottom to make a nice, clean-looking fit for the dowels - I should have cut them mostly to length [see point #1 above and #3 below], drilled and inserted the dowels, then planed them along with the rest of the stock)
#2 - if at all possible - use the planer to 'cut' rough stock to size (case in point: instead of using the table saw to trim off 1/4" of each side of a 2x4, use the planer)
#3 - if planning to plane stock after it's cut - cut it LONGER than necessary to allow for the infeed/outfeed ends of the stock to get gouged slightly by the planer - then plane and cut to final dimensions
#4 - use the planer more precisely (there's a height gauge for a reason!) - take note of final planing heights for certain pieces of stock so not everything has to be planed at the same time (see point #1 above) but can ultimately all be the same height once planed (even if not in order)
#5 - remember to consider the amount of material being removed when deciding how to best remove it (router for small amounts of material vs. table saw/chisel for large amounts)

the rest of plywood crafting.

So there was lots of plywood crafting to be done this Christmas season but it is now complete. Mostly plywood signs about mountains. Pretty much entirely plywood signs about mountains.

Including (but not limited to) - peeling off more paper label letters to complete the aforementioned (in the previous post) sign -

And finished!

To making J's Christmas present -

To a different idea... calling up the help of some coworkers at the printshop (my old stomping grounds) to fire up the big ol' flatbed printer and test printing on plywood some designs I threw together. I had quickly primed the wood the night before (though the printer has a white ink cartridge it didn't really work very well in our first round of testing - so I opted to just paint the wood white).

They came out looking (dare I say) pretty darn cool...

(that one of Mount Baker is about 20x30"... )

I quick applied a clear finish to them, drilled the backs and... finished! Trouble is I want to make more... luckily I have another four-foot square sheet of crap plywood ready to be cut to whatever size(s) necessary!