Simple Bird Feeder

With summer coming, my wife asked me if I could build her a bird feeder to hang in view of our kitchen window.  I made this one out of one single 5½” cedar fence board, so it only cost me around $2

First I ran the board through my Delta thickness planer to smooth it out somewhat. I thought it came out pretty good for a $2 board.

Then I cut it into pieces.

Here are the pieces to cut. Unless specified they are the board width:

Quantity	Length	Description
2	7 3/4" (cut to gable end point at 45 degree angles)	gable walls
1	7"	floor
1	10" (rip 1/2" off one edge to make width 5")	shorter roof
1	10"	longer roof
1	8"+ (measure and cut to fit as this may vary slightly depending on thickness of wood	from this board, cut two strips 1 1/2" wide for finished measurement of 8" approx x 1 1/2")

The only slightly tricky part as cutting the 45 degree angles on the ends of the gable wall pieces.  For this I used my compound miter saw to cut two corners off the top end of the gable wall pieces at 5″ up.

Once the pieces were cut, the assembly was super easy. I just used some exterior grade glue on each part and then pinned each piece in place while the glue was drying with my new Ryobi 18V Cordless brad nailer (I love that thing).

As you can see, there is really not a lot to it.  Attache the sides to the bottom piece, then attach the roof pieces.

Finally attach the two shorter sides.

Here is the final product outside in the sun.

So far the birds and, more importantly, my wife loves it.

– See full plan and more at: Ana White's site