How to Make a Bird Feeder // Woodworking | I Like To Make Stuff

Hey, I'm Bob and I like to make stuff. Today, we're going to replace this old bird feeder with a new one. Here in the backyard we have several different bird feeders and we get to watch a lot of different types of birds from our house and it's really cool. This particular one has been here I think since the house was built, so 30 plus years and it's time to replace it. So we're going to mimic the same design, make one really similar, and just swap it out. I started out with some 1x4 cedar boards and these are the same ones that I used on my recent lounge chair build. Cedar is great because it lasts outside a lot longer than something like pine would. On the miter saw, I cut these down into several sections so that I could glue them up into panels. But to make sure that they sat really closely together, I sanded down all of the faces that would touch. To make these panels, I used a biscuit joiner and the best way to start that is to line your panels up and draw a line across the joints where you want the biscuits to go. These marks end up being the center point for the biscuit joiner when you cut the slot. You center the tool on that mark, pull the trigger, and push the tool in. This cuts a slot and you do that at every one of these marks on every piece. The glue is what really holds these things together, but the biscuits are what keep them aligned. So you want to make sure that you put glue on all the faces that are going to touch, as well as down inside the slots to hold the biscuits in place. And just a note, if you've never used a biscuit joiner, it's super easy to use, but be aware that there are typically three different sizes of biscuits and you need to set your joiner to cut the right size hole for the right biscuits that you have. You'll see those listed as 0, 10, and 20, and I honestly have no idea where those numbers came from. When you glue up smaller panels like this, two clamps to hold them together is probably fine. But the bigger you make the panel, the more likely it is that when you clamp, it's going to bow. And in that case, you want to put clamps on the bottom and the top of the piece to keep it flat. All the panels are done and I've got them sanded up so they're nice and smooth, but the edges are still a little rough. So we're going to put these on the crosscut sled, run them through the table saw, and make sure that these edges are perpendicular to these. These are going to be the top for the roof, and I just have to figure out the angle that these are going to be cut out. I'll do that later on, but these are pretty much done other than adding that angle right there. The big thing to cut here are the side pieces, and so I got to draw out the shape and then cut both of these the same. I grabbed the dimensions of the pieces from the old birdhouse and then found the center line down the middle of this panel. I drew a perpendicular line across the upper part and then just connected the diagonals from point to point. But to cut these at the same time, I used a piece of double-sided tape in between them and sandwiched them together. And since these were simple straight lines, I just used a circular saw to cut it out. There's really not a whole lot to the construction of this, but the one piece that's kind of unique here is that I need to cut a slot along this line and along this line. That's going to allow two pieces of glass to slide in from here and from here, and then that's going to be the trough where all the birdseed goes. So we're going to cut that on the table saw. And although that looks like that might be interesting or difficult because it's angled, it's really just a straight line up against the fence. I lowered the blade down to half the thickness of the material and cut a dado into each side. Now I'm going to cut down a piece of glass to fit in between these two pieces of wood, and I'm going to do that by scoring a line right down the middle and cracking it. This is not something I've done a lot of, so it may not work. If you're not comfortable using glass, you can always get something like this cut very cheaply at a local glass shop. Obviously, glass is sharp, so be careful if you do this. It's not difficult, but it just takes a little time to find the right position to hold the scoring tool so that you hear the right sound when it's scoring the glass. All right, the first one didn't quite work, and luckily I have some extra glass. So we did some practice pieces, and I think I got the hang of it now, so we're going to try it again. I found it was best to hold the scoring tool 90 degrees to the glass, be really firm on it, and just barely push down. And if you get it right, you'll hear a really consistent low crackle sound from edge to edge. I set those two pieces in the slot and then measured the distance in between the two pieces of wood. I measured out where those set on the bottom panel and marked it. I set these pieces in place and traced the outside footprint of them so that I could pre-drill some holes. I drilled through from the top side and then flipped the piece over and countersunk from the bottom side. From there, I drove in some outdoor decking screws, just enough so that they poke through the other side. I put on some glue and then set the piece on the tips of those screws so it wouldn't slide around. I'm using the Titebond II glue here, and I just want to point out that the number three is the stuff that works better outdoors. I just don't have any on hand. The cedar is soft enough that I could push it right down onto those screws, and it held in place while I drove the screws in from the backside. And after that, I slid the glass in. The way this thing's going to work is that the top is going to come on and off so you can fill it up with birdseed, and that's going to fill up this trough in the middle. But the glass currently goes all the way to the bottom. That's not going to work. So we're going to put a little shim right there in the side to hold the glass up so that the birds can kind of pick the seed out of the bottom. I chopped off another small piece of cedar, but then after that, I didn't want to use the saw. I held it in place, marked the sizes, and used a handsaw to chop it down into smaller slices. After I got this in place, I realized that they could actually be about half this tall and still serve the same purpose without letting too much birdseed out at one time. So now we need to figure out the angle to cut these two pieces to make the roof line, and you could use a speed square and actually figure out the angle, or you could just use the offcut from this piece. We're going to take this offcut and line it up here with the corner, and then mark that line, and then chop at that line. And do that on both pieces, and they'll meet together to make that same angle. Now, you can adjust the blade to match that line, or you can just use the cutoff. After I got the blade set, I ran both pieces through so that it just barely touched the top edge. I test fit these pieces, and it was really close, but not perfect. So I did adjust the blade and make another pass. Then before gluing them up, I flipped the pieces around and cut the same angle on both sides. So I decided to add a little detail to the edge just to the same angle on the outside edge, so it's a little bit more interesting. And I know this thing is gigantic for a bird feeder, I get that, but it's right outside our kitchen window, and so there's a ton of birds that land there, and it's something we get to look at while we're eating breakfast. So the bigger it is, the more birds will be there. To glue these up, I put a piece of blue tape over the outside and flipped the piece over. This gave me a way to line up the outside edges before adding glue to the seam and folding the two pieces together. Another way to make sure that this dries at the right angle is to use those offcuts again as a spacer on the inside. I set the blade of the table saw back to 90 degrees and then cut down several strips to make a frame around the bottom plate. And each one of these got a 45 degree miter on each end. I cut one end all at the same time before measuring the pieces out to cut the other end. I'm going to put this frame around it, but I want it to hang over the top and the bottom, so I'm going to put a small spacer underneath the bottom of this so that it's off the surface a little bit. After the frame and the roof were both dry, I laid the roof in place and measured the distance on the outside to make sure that it was centered. And after it was centered, I just made some marks so I could slide it right back into that spot. When we go to fill this, I'm going to have the top actually slide off and lay over here, and then you can pour all the birdseed down in the top. So to do that, we're going to add some springs on each one of the sides, so it won't completely fall off and we'll get blown off by the wind, but you can slide it off and then pop it right back into place when you're ready. The eyelets and the springs I'm using here are not necessarily made to be outside, so eventually these are probably going to rust. If you don't want these to rust, make sure to get stainless steel or ones that are coated with some sort of a plastic coating. So now that it's spring-loaded, you can either lift it off and it'll stay attached, or you could actually just unhook the springs and actually take the entire thing off works the same. Then it was time to remove the old one, and this wood was in such bad shape that it was not hard to get off at all. There were a couple of rusted screws that I had to hammer down into it because I couldn't get them out. Then in the center of the bird feeder, I drove in some pretty long outdoor screws. I got it centered on the post and drove those all the way down. You may notice that I did not replace the post that this is going on to, and that's because we're probably going to end up moving this thing closer to the house. But for now, I'm just going to put it on this existing post and figure out if we want it here or if we want to move it. After the glass was in, it was time to fill it up. Now obviously the different types of food that you use will attract different types of birds. We use just a general food, so we get all sorts of finches and cardinals and robins and blue jays and all sorts of stuff. And that's pretty awesome. So there you go. It's a really simple project that's great to have in your yard. This is a great time of year as well. There's tons of birds out, and you may have kids that are not in school right now that need something to do. This is an awesome project to do with them. You also don't really have to have any specialized tools except for maybe the biscuit joiner, but you don't even have to use that if you're not starting with 1x4s. I'd love to know what you think about this one. Let me know down in the comments. And I've got lots of other projects that you may be interested in. Check some of those out and don't forget to subscribe. That's it for this one, guys. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time. Nope. Hey, I'm Bobbitt. I like to make stuff. Today, we're going to replace... So we're going to run all of them through the table saw on the crosscut sled to make these edges. Dang it. I was doing really well.