The Horsey Mailbox

My wife has been wanting a mailbox for her horses. Not that the horses get letters, but she wants them to get used to approaching a standing device, and have the rider get things in and out. Supposedly it’s good training, and I’ve been meaning to do it. With her teaching this weekend, I decided to knock it out.

I didn’t want a set post in the ground, but I’d made a couple volleyball posts and one had broken. So I decided to use that. I cut two 2x4s and added them to the broken post, giving me an upright set of posts to hold the mailbox.

I screwed these in with 6-7 screws on each side. Once that was done, I grabbed the mailbox I’d bought the other day. First I measure the underside, which was about 6 1/4” wide. I cut a 2x6 down to fit in there, and then ripped a rabbit in the middle of it so the mailbox would sit on it. I then bandsawed the end to fit inside my two upright posts. You can see the top here:

Once that was done, I screwed it into the two posts, using a clamp to hold it. I also added a support at an angle, screwed into the upright posts in the same way.

Once this was done, I added the mailbox and it was set. The mailbox is about eye level for me, so it shouldn’t be too low for someone on horseback.

Trim, Sanding, and Finishing

No pictures, since I didn't have the phone or a camera with me and didn't both going to get one, but the bench is shaping up nicely. I have a coat of finish on it, and I'll sand it tomorrow and add a second coat.

Yesterday I decided to get off my butt and do some work on the bench. My wife asked me when it would be done since she liked it, and I wanted to knock this one off, so I went out there and went to work. First I trimmed about 1/4" off each end to get them straight and even.

Next, I turned it upside down and then cut a 45degree corner on the end of one of the 2x4s, on the wide side. That way this would be a 3.5" trim piece hanging on one side. I set it next to the bench, measured, and then cut the other end a little long. I measured again and then trimmed it down.

I repeated this process for all 4 sides, until I had four miters that were close, not perfect, but good enough. I only blew one of the short sides and had to scrap it and cut a new one. With all four laid out, I clamped the long sides to the bench and screwed one side in, using 3 screws into each of the cross braces that were holding the top. With these done, I could clamp on the short sides, lining them up and trimming them slightly to make them fit better. They were screwed into the top and I had a bench that was  done as far as assembly was concerned.

The next step was to sand everything down. I used the belt sander with 80grit to clean up the top a bit, getting things fairly even. There were a few places where the top boards were slightly chipped on an edge and I couldn't get down to them. I could have pulled everything apart, but I was out of patience. I added a little wood filler over the screwed and tried to smooth that out. Today I realized I should have wiped off more of the filler, but live and learn.

The random orbit sander also helped, with 80 to start and then 220 all over the top and sides. Things were looking good when I knocked off.

Today I went out and bought more 100grit round pads and then went to work on the legs, smoothing and evening them out. I didn't want a completely perfect finish, so a few knots and blemishes are fine. Once everything was done, I wet a paper towel, wiped it all down, and set it in the sun for a couple hours.

Not a big selection of finishes in the house. I had some colored stain + poly choices, but they were small. I had one big outside poly finish, and decided to leave things natural and just apply that. I set it out and put a complete coat on the top and legs, getting the trim one. The bottom of the top (inside) wasn't done, but I need to flip it over, and I'm thinking to wait until I have the top done before I do that. At that time I also want to epoxy the bottom of the feet a bit as well.

So far it looks good and I'll snap pictures tomorrow.

Building a Bench - The Braces and Top

Leg 2 went just like leg 1. After they were both glued up, I two legs like this one:

Once I had these ready, I had to put some cross braces on them to support the top. My initial design had me cutting two 14" pieces and screwing them to the legs. I clamped them on, leveled them, and then screwed them into the side of the leg.

Once I had that done, I got the top ready by just laying the boards on top to see how they looked. Each top piece is a 46" 2x4 that was just cut to length and put on.

It looked pretty good, so it was time to then get more serious.

I grabbed my Kreg pocket hole device and started to put holes in the cross braces (after removing them from the legs). This would allow me to attach the top from below, without any holes in the top. I put two holes in for each top piece (4), which was a total of 8 holes in each brace, or 32 with 4 braces.

I screwed everything together, just to check the height, and it was too high. I'd set the  length of the legs at 22", but when I sat down, that was a little tall. I had my daughter check and her feet were swinging free, so I knew I'd need to cut things down.

I also realized that the cross braces would show below the edging I had planned, so I also needed to remove the cross braces and cut an angle off the bottom of them. However I left that for another day.

Building a Bench - Leg 1 Glue Up

The glue was dry this morning, so the first thing I did was run the base across the jointer to smooth it out. That gives me a nice base on which to stand things.

With the base and the leg, I next decided to cut the corners before glue up. It would be harder once the support is in, so I ran it across the table saw.

Then it was time for glue. I put glue inside the base, smearing it near the top and adding more than I thought, and then pushed in the support

Once this dries, I’ll have a single support. Then it’s time to duplicate this, but try doing it another way to see if it’s easier.

Building a Bench - Leg 1

I saw a bench in a store a few months ago and I thought, that should be easy, so I embarked on the project. It's been slow, and I've just been working on it a few minutes each time I can.

Today I got the base of leg one glued up. I started last week, planing and joining two boards for the upright support and gluing them together. They are 2 2x4s, about 20" long, glued together.

Today I planed and joined two other boards, and then cut them into 4 1/4" slices for the middle spacers that go next to my support. Jointed two other boards that would be the outside, and then glued everything up, execpt the support. I left that as a spacer and then pulled it out, giving me essentially a 4 2x4 wide plank with a hole in it. I want to joint the base and cut angles, so I decide to leave the support out for now and I'll glue that in there once I have the base set.

Testing the Planer

I bought a refurbished Rigid Planer last year and it’s been sitting in a box in the garage for a long time. I’ve been busy, and the projects I’ve tackled haven’t required more than jointing one side.

However I wanted to laminate some boards together and build a bench, and needed to get everything to the same thickness. Two weeks ago I unpacked the planer and put it on a mobile cart I had. There were legs in it, which I hadn’t expected, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to use them.

A week ago, I dug through the parts and instructions, looking over things, but didn’t feel like doing anything.

Today I decided to do something. No instructions for the legs, but they’re simple metal bolt together legs. I leaned that I connect the top and bottom part of each leg with one bolt, saving the other one for the cross braces. I bolted the cross braces together, and then tightened everything once I was done. About 10-15 minutes to assemble it.

I stuck it out of the way in the garage, and then carried the planer over to it. It’s heavy, but it fit right on top, and four bolts easily held it down to the legs assembly. Once it was done, this is what it looked like:

The instructions say to clean off the oil from metal parts, but there really wasn’t any. Perhaps because this was a refurb? I did have to remove a plastic coating from the interior bed.

I just wanted to test it, so I grabbed the three pieces I needed sized, already jointed on one side. I lowered the bed to a rough spot where I’d rip off about 1/4” of stuff and fed one through.

It came out the other side, and looked like I had two parallel sides.

I quickly ran through all three  pieces, and then looked like they were consistently the right size. I glued them together, and we’ll see tomorrow how they look.

Hay Mover

When we went to big bales, we worried about moving them around the property. The first year wasn’t bad since we had 8 delivered at a time, and just dropped them in the barn from the trucks and fed off them. However this year, with a hay shortage, we decided we needed more and had 24 or so delivered in the fall. A friend has a similar, but slightly smaller, tractor, and he built a set of pallet forks for his tractor.

We were hoping he would help us, but he ended up getting hurt, and with hay getting in short supply in the barn, we decided to just order some. A little bit of trouble since the original forks we planned on were not being made, but we decided to move to a skid steer adapter, and then add pallet forks, or other attachments to that.

I’d been meaning to go get them, but too busy. However today, despite waking up a little late, I packed up Kendall after feeding horses and raced up there. We were pushing 82 in a 75 most of the way, arriving at 11:58 (they closed at 12). They’re in the country, and good neighbors, and a guy stuck around to help me load my stuff, and take the bucket off. They’re going to adapt the bucket to work with the skid steer, and so  I left it, bringing back the load above. Pallet forks on top, and the skid steer adapter on the bottom.

We got home, and my first step was to remove the old bucket quick attach frame. Not sure what we’ll do with that, but I pulled it off.

It’s four bolts held in with pins and they were fairly easy to remove. A little pounding, but it worked fine. However it’s a pain and definitely not what I want to be doing to switch from the forks to the bucket.

I then lifted and grunted the adapter near and managed to get it attached. The first pin is in above, and surprisingly it wasn’t too bad to get them all in. However that thing is a 100 lbs of solid metal and not easy to move. Taking this one and off would not be fun.

 

Once it was on, it looked pretty good. I had to lift the tractor and then adjust it slightly to get the pins in, and then I added the forks.

We didn’t move hay, but we did test them out and they worked pretty good.