• 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!

Fruit cage

stephen.wood125":1ptpilwh said:
Interesting side note about the ultrasonic cat scarer; Glad it works, I will have to get one.
Click to expand...

I found that the pestbye had good reports. It comes with a metal spike to stick in the ground at moggy level but it has two related downsides. It is heavy on batteries (4 x AA) and worse of all it has 4 tiny screws into cheap plastic and a fallout gasket seal to access the batteries.
I made two dummy cells from dowel with wires on and ran it from a remote mains supply (6v dc) Make sure the polarity is correct. The circuit it self has no reverse polarity protection as the is done by design mechanically in the battery box.

Once tested I sealed it up with extra silicone to be absolutely sure and it has been fine all through the winter months.


Bob
 
I generally chase off our local moggies but one yesterday, with the birds alarm calling, staked a bit, made a dash and caught a mouse in our flower beds!

Rod
 
I took an overall photo of the back garden from the bedroom window.

In the foreground left is the roof of my metalwork shop and to the right, the mega pergola mentioned earlier.

The magnolia is really starting to look its best. The woodwork shop is on the left with solar panel on the roof and the fruit cage perhaps looks a bit more modest relative to the rest of the garden.



Over the last few days the gravel boards have been fitted to follow the gradient of the soil and it is time to think about the door. First job is to make the sliding door gear so I can get an exact position for the the top of the door and hence gauge it height.

The track I'm using is unistrut. This is a sort of big boys Meccano set with girders, clips connectors etc. It is made by several manufacturers to a BS specification so parts are interchangeable. If you were to look intot he suspended ceilings in most commercial buildings, you would see it holding up cable tray, heating and ventilation ducts and the frame work for the suspended ceiling itself.
It is made in plan steel, galvanised steel and stainless steel to suit a variety of environments.

I'm using a length of 40 x 40 mm nominal girder in stainless steel.



Here is the sectional view and I'll be running bearings inside the girder along the end of both "J" edges
This should be come obvious later.



The bearings will be mounted on aluminium blocks and these will screw into the top of the door.

Here are the blocks being machined to size. 35 x 60 x 20mm



Here are some of the rest of the raw materials

19mm brass rod to be made into bushes, washers etc, SS socket capscrews and all stainless steel ball races.



I've got some working drawings and I'll look to paste in some views of parts. I should have the milled and turned parts completed tomorrow or Monday with some WIP photos as well as the completed runners.

SWMBO is still attracting numerous visitors so I have to keep stopping and serving tea & buns when I'd rather be in the workshop :lol:

More soon.

Bob
 
That Magnolia just coming into bloom is gorgeous Bob :-)
 
Rob":gz9xpqll said:
That Magnolia just coming into bloom is gorgeous Bob :-)
Click to expand...

Isn't it just!

Such a shame it is for such a short period. inevitably we get a late frost which browns the flowers then they drop creating a mess, then there is the autumn leaf drop and the bullet hard pods which get chucked every which way by the flymo.
By then it is difficult to remember how nice it looked back in spring!

Bob
 
OK here is some more detail of the bearing blocks (two) that the gate will hang from.



The central hatched block has two holes vertically for wood screws to go down into the top of the gate and single lateral hole for a socket cap screw (in green) to hold the bearings. spacers in red not only clamp the bearings in place but are sized to just clear the side of the unistrut channel. The spacers will be made for brass which will run smoothly against the stainless steel and should be hard enough not to wear significantly.

The mounting holes in the unistrut channel are designed to be a rattling good fit for M10 bolts so the upper red countersunk bushes will reduce the hole to be suitable for woodscrews.

Our morning visitors finally departed at 2pm and the next lot are due any minute so not much machining so far today and a roast dinner to prepare so the next update could well be tomorrow now.

Bob
 
Very posh cage. How will you stop small bird getting in around the door ! side and the floor as when closed I presume that One edge will go up against the wall
 
Derek,

I'm aiming for a 3-5mm gap around the door. This is one of the reasons I'm making the running gear next so the door/gate can be made to as close a fit as any seasonal expansion will tolerate.
The leading edge will seat into a vertical U channel formed against the wall.

Bob
 
9fingers":2rmbglo2 said:
Derek,

I'm aiming for a 3-5mm gap around the door. This is one of the reasons I'm making the running gear next so the door/gate can be made to as close a fit as any seasonal expansion will tolerate.
The leading edge will seat into a vertical U channel formed against the wall.

Bob
Click to expand...


I see the gap is smaller than I thought. Like the idea of the U shaped channel for the door to slide into.

You know what birds are like they are clever to find a way in but stupid when it comes to getting out
 
Apart from taking SWMBO out in her chariot for some fresh air and sun, I finally got some decent time in the metalwork shop today.

I thought I'd show the completed parts first and then some shots of the manufacturing for those who are interested and to save boring those who aren't :lol:

A complete set of piece parts ready for assembly.



The stepped washers used to hold the fixed unistrut rail to the cage.



and



Washer and screw located in the rail slot. There will be six of these along the 2m length of rail.



These are the two completed runners which will be screwed to the top of the gate. Not quite the same as the drawing above as I had a idea to make assembly easier but only a minor variation.



Here is a runner offered into the end of the rail. You can see the close fit of the brass bushes to the sides of the rail. This will keep the gate in line and the bearings will carry the weight of the door.



Now for some manufacturing photos:-

The aluminium blocks being reduced from 20mm to 12.5mm thick where the bearing will go. It is easiest to make two at once. ( Also and easy way to bu88er two up at once if you are not paying attention!)



Over to the lathe for the brass bushes ( the stepped washers not shown but very similar)

Turning the diameters



Parting off with a rear mounted tool means that turning settings are not lost when doing repetitive batch work.



Piles of little brass needle swarf everywhere now but a satisfying result none the less.

Bob
 
Must be nearly complete now. Nice bit of metal work by the way
 
I've been a bit distracted from this project for a while and must get back to taking some more photos and writing it up.
The fabric netting for the top/roof arrived back in February and I put the box to one side ready. When I cam to fit it they had cut the ends quite crooked and along one long edge the length was about 450mm short of the 8m ordered. Of course it was not until I had struggled single handedly to stretch it over the frame that I realised what the cause of the problem was Grr :evil:

I emailed the suppliers last Friday and they had a new piece sent through in a few days but I've only had a little time to start to fit it - at least it is long enough - at least 8.1m.

In the meantime I've had a minor disaster with my solar water system as the pump failed and the header on the roof got up to 180 degrees C and has slightly cooked the heat transfer fluid (HTF). I had to wait until it had cooled down the next day to drain it down - too dangerous to handle those temperatures in flexi drain pipes.

I've got a new pump and fitting some improved valves but need a day without sun to refill and bleed the system. Tomorrow looks hopeful. I'll run it with just water for a day or so to flush out any cooked fluid left in and then put fresh HTF in. Now I've had the experimental system running well for a couple of years, it is a good opportunity to fit some professional quality parts such has steam rated filling and drain valves instead of the washing machine type T valves I had been using.
We are not short of free hot water fortunately as the solar PV is dumping a useful amount of excess electricity into the immersion heaters

Back to fruit cage in a few days with luck.

Bob
 
Glad the netting is sorted and look forward to the rest of the build. Need to do a minor repair to my small one in the next day or two.
 
After distractions various - too tedious to mention, the fruit cage construction is now complete.

Firstly the sliding door. No construction photos I'm afraid but is is simple half lap joints screwed and glued. No need for any diagonal bracing as it is suspended from its top edge.

Here is the track in place with a timber cover for neatness and no other reason really. I had some pressure treated wood left over from the gravel boards.



A view from the outside with it closed showing a vertical board on the frame to keep it from swinging in any breeze.



Closer views shut and ajar from the inside.





I decided against any guides or restraints at the bottom of the door as I reckoned these were not really needed and could get clogged with soil over time.

The top netting is a woven mesh about 6mm square sold as hail protection netting. I seems very strong as is declared to be UV resistant - time will tell! internal head room is about 2.2m so room for tool handles etc.

There is a support matrix of steel wires at 900mm nominal pitch. Not sure how visible these are in the following photos.
Looking from the inside


and a couple taken standing on a step ladder from the outside.





The net was roughly attached using f clamps to start with and then aligned more carefully using the grid of the mesh. Then one edge was attached using 38x19 pressure treated tiling batten and stainless screws at about 300mm pitch. Next the opposite was tensioned and fixed the the same manner.
the long edges were then tensioned and the battens fixed to the fascia boards of the two buildings.

I was please to see that I could get all the ripples out by this method which would have been an eyesore (to me at least) when viewed from a distance eg my bedroom window.

All we want now is some fruit to start growing. Some strawberry flowers have started to appear and the raspberry blossom is in bud as are the red, black and white currants. The automatic watering is now on too to maximise the yield.
Now the birds will have to sit on the outside and stay hungry.

I've noted one or two comments about other building similar cages so these were the key suppliers I used.
All the timber and metposts came from In Excess - several branches of this "surplus store" in the south
http://www.in-excess.com/
The galvanised steel mesh was from http://www.hillsofdevon.co.uk/
The woven hail netting came from http://www.nutleyskitchengardens.co.uk/

Thanks for reading.

Bob
 
Looking good Bob. Particularly impressed with the nice taught roof, sure if I hade done it the result would have been all saggy. SWMBO mobile enough for an inspection tour?

Terry.
 
Thanks Terry!
Tensioning was made a lot easier by the fine grid of the netting mesh.

Yes Management has been out a couple of times (still with support boot and walking frame) to inspect the progress. Last time she sat on a chair in the cage giving me orders on planting out last years strawberry runners. She is is usually the main gardener and currently getting very frustrated with not being able to get on with things. We see the consultant on Monday (8 weeks since the operation) and provided the xrays show enough progress, she should be able to come out of the boot for short periods and start learning to walk on the solidly fused ankle.

Bob
 
The finished cage looks great, now to reap the fruits of your labour. Just need to make slug traps now :twisted: :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
Bob
Looks a really superb job, and I'm with you on the asthetics, has to look right.
Does the top stay on year round or come off in winter, I'm wondering about snow loads?

Mark
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top