• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Dovecote - finished!

S

StevieB

Nordic Pine
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Rather embarrassed to say I haven't posted anything in ages, but am slowly plodding away in the background taking months to do what some of you do in hours or days! Latest project, after the collared doves have AGAIN managed to build a nest on the sky dish, is a dovecote. No real plan here other than it had to be made with what I had available so 3 x hexagonal plywood sections, some 14mm T&G panelling left over from a bathroom refit and a few bits of scrap while I work out the roof (which will be slate). Currently got the sides and sections sorted and arrived here at the weekend (excuse the poor pic!):

Dovecote_2.jpg

I think I want to paint this before I start doing the roof as the overhang will make painting more difficult, but as it will eventually be on a pole a couple of meters up in the air, I want to paint it in something that will ideally not need painting again after 1 winter. I can obviously go with exterior gloss, but any other suggestions welcome - finish needs to be bright white but does not have to be gloss.

And if anyone else is making one, top tip from me - don't make it 2 inches wider than the door to your workshop (DAMHIKT)!
 
If you don’t want to go to extreme lengths I can recommend Sadolin Superdec, my shed just needs a touch-up now after 10? Years, but all edges must be rounded over.
I can also recommend glueing on and joint filling between the slates with CT1, (they do it in black). I did a Church notice board roof that way a few years ago. Ian
 
Or, Bedec barn paint. It's water based and non=toxic. Reputedly long lasting. I'm presently painting an entire barn in it after several tests on different paints.
 
Thanks chaps - a quick google suggest I can get Bedec from Toolstation so will give it a try on the basis of the number of positive reviews on here. I am hoping the slate will fit between the rafters and will use lead flashing over the joins, but will keep ct1 in mind if that doesn't work, thank you!
 
Having made one large dovecote some years ago, make sure you can access the nesting chambers to clean them out. The birds will not mind the odd leak, as nesting boxes tend to be dryer than a tree 8-)

We have collared doves here. They are much nicer and less noisy than the wood pigeons that also nest in our garden.

Good luck.
 
Thanks - should have posted the dimensions really - approx 3ft across and 5ft high. Holes are 8 inches high and about 5 inches wide so plenty of room to reach in and clean them out. What I suspect is they will still nest on the Sky dish and sit and look at the Dovecote (assuming I can finish it before next nesting season!).
 
You can deal with that. As long as you can catch the doves (with food).

The method is to put a big net, like a tepee, over the dovecote (down to the ground) and put the doves in. Feed them and keep them there for a week or so. Chances are they will adopt it as home.
 
Paint ordered from Toolstation yesterday, arrived already this morning (could get black from store, but white has to be delivered!). Anyway, a quick read of the tin makes no mention of primer or undercoat, anyone know whether this is required? Clearly its primary use is on rough sawn external timber, but for planed wood I am tempted to use a one coat primer/undercoat first anyway unless someone tells me this is a really bad idea.....
 
All the details are on their web site. Which is not the best. However, you need no primer or undercoat. You thin the first coat with 30% water and use that as the primer. This is a good idea as it soaks in and makes life far easier on raw wood. You can recoat in 2 hours, just with neat paint. Final coat 2 hours after that.

Before you use the tinned primer, put knotting or a cover all such as zinnser on any knots, else it well bleed through.
 
Thanks for this. I have set myself the challenge of finishing it by Sunday, largely because I have a new toy to play with and I want my bench space back.......

.....a Scuplfun S9 laser cutter- nominally for cutting veneer but if I am being honest I got sucked into you tube video's and wanted to have a play with one - this is at the very budget end of lasers and therefore I want to build an enclosure etc first rather than risk my eyeballs!
 
Just by way of an update on this, I wanted it finished by 5th June, finally managed to get it mounted today :oops: Would I make another? No, probably not - weighs a ton, was a real pain to get all the angles right and cutting slates was a nightmare. Fortunately flashing tape hides a multitude of sins and from a distance it looks OK - now just to get the collared doves to build in it rather than on the Sky dish!

DC3.JPG

DC2.JPG

DC1.JPG
 
Well done. They are a right pain to make I agree. For what is after all a glorified bird box.

When they nest that area will produce lots of excellent fertiliser. :lol:
 
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