Project Information
Boys and Girls
This damn C19 is being blamed for a lot of things nowadays and here's another one of its victims.
This is not as much a medical casualty but more so the justification for burdening you readers with this very basic but practical project.
With the home isolation indoctrinated by our politicians, there has been an additional burden imbued on my humble letter box that has caused me to view it with greater respect and thereby belatedly herald its birth into this world, as a project here at LJ's.
It all started by an impromptu dislodgement, perpetrated by a misguided postal service delivery truck up my driveway several years ago, on what was considered to be an immovable, securely embedded letter box
mounted in concrete by 4×10mm bolts… the incriminating scars after all these years,
While it was put back on its feet, correction… foot, I was apprehensive of its future survival so a replacement was decided on.
Never let it be said I'm a creature of habit, so keeping my mouth shut, it was off to the SketchUp drawing board,
Jarrah was my immediate choice of timber
as that was the only "exotic" I had… and used 100mm PVC pipes for the paper holder tubes
(the red tape was to indicate which was the wrong end… {sigh!} I could never win).
Holes were cut for the junk mail receptacles with the by-product of a bloody big mess and lot of timber burning
before I discovered this hole-saw trick.
A PVC pipe retainer was cut out of a 6mm jarrah veneer on the scroller,
I made 2 in case I screwed one up,
Fortunately I did manage to screw it up so the second one wasn't wasted.
With the base dovetailed and test fitted,
It was trimmed to final dimensions using a following router bit,
Eventually screwed on confirming I was a total smart-arse,
Dovetailed the top half
and laminated some merbau decking for the top half's base,
Perfected my dovetail joins by some colour co-ordinated wood filler,
and a dry fit of the two story box,
Had to check whether the stainless letter plate was the right colour and wouldn't fall through the hole,
I opted against mounting the new letter box on a pedestal and chose a concrete tile for a rest,
with some bolts through it to hold some packers,
for screwing the box to,
The box was finished with several coats of Sikkens Cetol HLS and Sikkens Cetol Supernatural,
Some of you may have noticed that there is no number on the box, while the rest of you did not… that is because (no, not the noticed but the lack of number), the house across the road is #1
and my neighbour is #2 with #4 next to #2, which is not me… and Australia Post refused to ratify me using #0. Confused? Well mine is a corner block and the idiot owner/builder used the back door as the street address and there's no bloody way I'm walking around the block to get my letters. Fortunately the posties has had 45 years (house built in 1975) to learn the numbering system… unfortunately it's a bitch when I get a new postie and have to scour the gutter to get my mail until he can be appropriately indoctrinated.
I did manage to slip in the #0 on the curb,
however, Australia Post continually throw a wobbly every time a letter is addressed to #0.
I did make a SketchUp video of some of the options I considered before concluding on this final design.
Before writing up this project, I had a quick look at the letter box and was a bit embarrassed about the state it was in and decided a slight facelift (a quick sand and coat of Sikkens) wouldn't go astray. Unfortunately I forgot to take a before facelift picture, however this is what it looks like now, after the surgery,
In my opinion, it has cleaned up reasonably well after those years in the sun, however, the reputedly "stainless" hardware, didn't fare as well,
even with some spit and polish... maybe I should have used Finnish instead of Polish.
PS. If you don't use letters and only converse via email, my next project of "A picture of my computer" might interest you.
This damn C19 is being blamed for a lot of things nowadays and here's another one of its victims.
This is not as much a medical casualty but more so the justification for burdening you readers with this very basic but practical project.
With the home isolation indoctrinated by our politicians, there has been an additional burden imbued on my humble letter box that has caused me to view it with greater respect and thereby belatedly herald its birth into this world, as a project here at LJ's.
It all started by an impromptu dislodgement, perpetrated by a misguided postal service delivery truck up my driveway several years ago, on what was considered to be an immovable, securely embedded letter box
mounted in concrete by 4×10mm bolts… the incriminating scars after all these years,
While it was put back on its feet, correction… foot, I was apprehensive of its future survival so a replacement was decided on.
Never let it be said I'm a creature of habit, so keeping my mouth shut, it was off to the SketchUp drawing board,
Jarrah was my immediate choice of timber
as that was the only "exotic" I had… and used 100mm PVC pipes for the paper holder tubes
(the red tape was to indicate which was the wrong end… {sigh!} I could never win).
Holes were cut for the junk mail receptacles with the by-product of a bloody big mess and lot of timber burning
before I discovered this hole-saw trick.
A PVC pipe retainer was cut out of a 6mm jarrah veneer on the scroller,
I made 2 in case I screwed one up,
Fortunately I did manage to screw it up so the second one wasn't wasted.
With the base dovetailed and test fitted,
It was trimmed to final dimensions using a following router bit,
Eventually screwed on confirming I was a total smart-arse,
Dovetailed the top half
and laminated some merbau decking for the top half's base,
Perfected my dovetail joins by some colour co-ordinated wood filler,
and a dry fit of the two story box,
Had to check whether the stainless letter plate was the right colour and wouldn't fall through the hole,
I opted against mounting the new letter box on a pedestal and chose a concrete tile for a rest,
with some bolts through it to hold some packers,
for screwing the box to,
The box was finished with several coats of Sikkens Cetol HLS and Sikkens Cetol Supernatural,
Some of you may have noticed that there is no number on the box, while the rest of you did not… that is because (no, not the noticed but the lack of number), the house across the road is #1
and my neighbour is #2 with #4 next to #2, which is not me… and Australia Post refused to ratify me using #0. Confused? Well mine is a corner block and the idiot owner/builder used the back door as the street address and there's no bloody way I'm walking around the block to get my letters. Fortunately the posties has had 45 years (house built in 1975) to learn the numbering system… unfortunately it's a bitch when I get a new postie and have to scour the gutter to get my mail until he can be appropriately indoctrinated.
I did manage to slip in the #0 on the curb,
however, Australia Post continually throw a wobbly every time a letter is addressed to #0.
I did make a SketchUp video of some of the options I considered before concluding on this final design.
Before writing up this project, I had a quick look at the letter box and was a bit embarrassed about the state it was in and decided a slight facelift (a quick sand and coat of Sikkens) wouldn't go astray. Unfortunately I forgot to take a before facelift picture, however this is what it looks like now, after the surgery,
In my opinion, it has cleaned up reasonably well after those years in the sun, however, the reputedly "stainless" hardware, didn't fare as well,
even with some spit and polish... maybe I should have used Finnish instead of Polish.
PS. If you don't use letters and only converse via email, my next project of "A picture of my computer" might interest you.