A 2×4 BIRDCAGE WITH BIRD

I struggled for over a week on what to build out of a 2×4! I searched online what other people have

done, and didn’t get any inspiration. Then I was getting ready to fall asleep when it came to me. I

got up and wrote it down so that I wouldn’t forget it in the morning. This always seems like the time

I get my best ideas. I have never seen anything like it before so I knew that it was probably unique.

I figured that to have any chance at all in this contest I would have to make something very different.

I needed a 2×4 with a 20” section of straight grain for the bars of the cage and I found the perfect

2×4 at the first place I looked. A local lumber yard just 1/2 mile from my house. Here is the southern

yellow pine (SYP) 2×4 and only three knots which I could work around.

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Here is the complete cutting plan.

You will probably have to click here to see the entire thing:

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh224/grkemper/2x4/022x4Plan.jpg

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The bars were the hardest and most boring part of this project. Cutting a 20 inch long piece of 2×4

into 119 long square strips on the band saw didn’t take that long but pulling each one of the through

a series of progressively smaller holes did. I learned this from my model boat making days. I took a

two feeler gauges and drilled a series of holes each about .005 smaller than the last. You start by

taking your square piece of wood and sharpen the end so that you can get it through the first

hole. Then you use a pair of pliers to pull it through the hole. This will shave a little of the wood

off. Then on the the next smaller hole and so one until you get to 1/8 inch bars. I am glad that I

started with about twice as many bars as I would use. The growth rings in the SYP were not perfectly

straight and didn’t make the job easy. I ended up with just 5 more of the 60 long bars I would need.

A lot broke and were messed up in too many ways to describe. But I did salvage enough good sections of

the scraps do the top of the cage.

Here is a bar in process:

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Here is a closeup showing the burr created when the hole is drilled. That does all the cutting!

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Here are some of the 12 segments that makeup the lower and upper ring:

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Here you can see the band clamp holding the lower ring being glued.

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I made a hardboard template to route the rings round. I later drilled the 60 holes in the ring to

use for drilling the holes for the bars. This allowed for both rings to have holes in exactly

the same place.

Here I routed the outside:

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Here the inside:

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And here the completed ring.

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I tried to keep the bird theme in everthing. Like the bird toes and claws on the bottom

of the stand, as well a the birds heads and wing feathers on the top of the cage.

The bird sitting on the perch inside the cage was my first ever attempt to do a 3D carving.

The hardest part of the entire thing was to drill the holes on the 6 pieces making up the top.

They had to be drilled at compound angles and figureing them out took some head scratchin’.

They are held in place by the bars extending past the top ring and into a hole.

I made a dado around the inside of the bottom ring to install the floor flush. Even has working door.

The project is about 29” tall.

-- Gary - Never pass up the opportunity to make a mistake look like you planned it that way - Tyler, TX